


甘苦

by Emeka



Category: Summon Night (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Canon, Everyone Is Alive, Incest, M/M, Polyamory, Power Dynamics, Pre-Canon, Unrequited Folth/Kagerou, except gaudi unfort, no adult/minor but the concept is mentioned a lot, underage sexuality
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-12-28
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:34:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 31
Words: 55,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26592232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emeka/pseuds/Emeka
Summary: Ghift, and being second.
Relationships: Erst Brattern/Ghift Brattern/Folth
Comments: 36
Kudos: 11
Collections: Octobercest 2020!





	1. #f8f0da

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i have literally been looking forward to this fest since the end of the last one!! wowie

“Shh. Shh.”

Although it is the first clear memory he has, it has the feel of something old and familiar. Years before remembrance he must have known the touch of his brother’s hand in his hair and the sight of his face better than he had known their own parents. Each stroke inspired warmth in his body, though the memory itself became less rosy as it went on.

“You have to sleep, Ghift,” his big brother sighed. But the more he cried, the more of his attention he received---in consequence, his brother’s expression was not loving or gentle, but exasperated. A fairly large period of years lay between them so that while Ghift was exiting his toddlerhood, his brother---Erst---was leaving his childhood. “Please stop crying now...”

Erst’s hand was tender---even if the rest of him wasn’t. So he allowed his sniffles to die down and hoped please, don’t stop anyway. But the hand in his hair pulled away and Erst sighed again, body shifting in the attitude of one preparing to leave, palms flat down against the quilt.

Ghift’s eyes watered over again. But what he remembers most is the turn in momentum. When Erst’s eyes met his and—-though he sighed so hard he nearly deflated---he crawled under the sheets and into bed with him.

“You’re such a crybaby,” he mumbled.

It didn’t matter. The warmth he gave off is one Ghift had only felt with him. That he’d be willing to share it with him was all the reassurance he needed.


	2. 026

He is not much older by this point. It is enough for his memories to begin stuttering into a more coherent stream; he remembers yesterday’s breakfast, the fall he took and his skinned knee. His parents are still the shadowy vague figures they were throughout his babyhood. It is his brother who gets him dressed in the morning and undressed at night, and tends to him when he is hungry, upset, or needs a bath.

Baths. He’s never been finicky about baths themselves, only sometimes the timing when he’d rather keep playing with his toys, or it’s so late he wants to skip the whole bathroom ordeal and go to bed. Then they fade into one general experience of being sat in water and scrubbed. But today… perhaps as a result of his developing cogency… the process stands out clear.

Erst mumbles a bath time song under his breath, sitting on his knees beside the tub. As the water rises, his hand makes a continual sound of lapping waves up against the porcelain walls. A curtain of faint steam rises. “It’s warm now. You don’t need my help for your clothes anymore, right?”

“I’m a big boy,” Ghift replies dutifully. He has to sit on the toilet to get his pants off (balancing still being a somewhat difficult feat for him) but it’s enough a show of independence that Erst is more indulgent about sharing a bath with him than he sometimes is.

For the first time, he notes the differences between them as his brother undresses. There’s no particular meaning to his attention. It’s more a matter of idle curiousity. He is much shorter, and chubby with the baby fat Erst is growing out of, even down to the softer, rounder shape of his hands. His hair is closer to black than Erst’s soft shade of brown, and not so prone to corking off wherever it likes. Between their legs is about the only place they look the same, but Erst picks him up before he can finish his comparison.

“In you get.”

The water sucks him in from the toes up like a comfortable blanket. Erst is back to song, just humming this time, as he guides him into a sitting position. Even the way his hands feel is different than he thinks his would be, doing the same thing. More secure. Is that from being more grown-up too, like the different shape of his body? Or is it part of the ‘I’m your big brother so ( _please_ ) listen to me’ relationship?

He’s never had anyone’s hands washing his hair but his brother’s. Not even his own. He still needs them to cover his eyes so they don’t get bubbles in them. No one else has ever washed his back. No one else has ever felt his forehead when he was sick. There’s no way to compare the things he has never known with the only thing he has ever had.

“Big brother,” he says under the sound of water pouring through his soapy hair. “This time, I’ll wash you too. Okay?”

He thought he might get some measure of praise for at least his willingness. But Erst drops his tune to sigh (a sound that he has also been becoming more and more aware of) and says flatly, “Don’t be silly. You’d have to stand. What if you slipped and fell?”

His lips mouth a very small, ‘oh’.


	3. absence makes the heart grow fonder

The mansion has been empty of anyone but them for as long as he remembers. Them, and their parents—but they don’t really count. It’s really just him and his brother. They are the only sign of life here, the only sound that resounds throughout the halls.

So when the only other thing that meets his life with life of its own is threatening to leave him---

“You _can’t_ ,” he cries, throat clogging up with a sense of fruitless desperation. Once his brother has made up his mind there’s no stopping him, but he is still compelled to plead. Otherwise he’d be letting him go without a fight, like his leaving means nothing to him.

Like all the times before, his brother ignores him to the point of cruelty. His eyes are always toward the door. Toward outside. “I have friends, you know. It’d be good if you’d make some too.”

Ghift has never met these ‘friends’. He cannot comprehend there being an other of any sort—or that his brother would want them, and want him to want them as well. “You’re my big brother. You’re s’posed to stay with me!”

But he is not strong enough to make him, and not brave enough to follow him out the door.

He goes up instead to his brother’s room and miserably spreads himself out on the bed. He does not cry; this heaviness in his chest is so crushing he’s not sure he could even get his lungs up to the effort. There’s still a slight haziness in his eyes as he stares up at the ceiling, then the wall, then into the bedspread itself. If there’s one thing that might tip him over, this would be it. The smell of his brother’s skin in his nose, so close even when he’s not here. This is the only thing he has when they are separated.

Hours pass in a doze.

What is Erst doing with his ‘friends’? Does he read to them too? Play ball and hide-and-seek? Feed them? He doesn’t like thinking of his brother with strangers, but Erst himself… that’s fine.

The sound of life again in the mansion is faraway in his sleepy state. His heart beats harder for every footstep, every turned knob, vibrating through his body almost like a dream. Is it excitement he feels, when he wonders whether Erst will be angry or take pity?

Erst shakes him awake and over, not rough enough for anger. “You’re such a crybaby,” he says, scolding only a little. His face is flush with color from wherever he’s been, whatever he has been doing, with whoever he’s been with. “It’s really annoying when you sulk like this.”

It’s a good mood he’s in, but that’s the worst outcome of all. It means that Ghift has had no effect on him greater than the world and people outside.

Also, he is definitely not sulking, though Erst accuses him of it again when he turns back over.


	4. #a798b0

It’s sunny today so he’s outside in the backyard. That’s the only reason there is for it. Not like he has anything to do, in or out of doors, right now; his brother is not in the mood to indulge him any more than being in the same general area. In a half hour he hasn’t budged from the patio table, or looked up from the book in his hand. Ghift staves away boredom and loneliness by picking up rocks and seeing what crawls out.

Today he has been lingering by the south wall, so he can still be in the nice from the house, when he notices something weird. It’s a big stone wall, so there’s no way to just look over the other side; Erst could surely climb up, but it’s too high for him. So he has no way to be sure of what he’s hearing. This mansion is far enough from other houses he has never heard any sign of others, unless it’s fireworks going off on the holidays. This isn’t a firework, or a human voice, or anything else he’s heard before. It’s thumping on the ground. It doesn’t sound like an animal walking around.

He’s about to try to get his brother’s attention to ask what he thinks it is when there’s a great big _thump_! and something comes flying over the wall. He raises his hands too late to do anything (not that he knew what he intended on doing) before it smacks him on the forehead and bounces off.

There’s a burning pain where it (a ball?) hit, then his butt as he loses his balance and falls back. Tears fill his eyes on reflex. The sound of rubber slapping against stone continues a few steps behind him but he’s looking straight on ahead. There’s another sound on the other side. Crunching on the leaves he hadn’t heard earlier beneath the louder noise.

“Is someone there?” a voice asks sheepishly.

Someone is speaking to him. Not to him directly, but he is the ‘someone there’ and should answer, shouldn’t he? He looks to his brother (who is now standing beside, ball suspended between his palms) but he is looking at the wall too, with an expression he can’t make anything of.

“Yes?” he ventures cautiously.

“Oh! Um, sorry.” It’s a voice somewhat like his own. High while being discernibly boyish, but fuller in a way he can only compare to his brother’s. “I lost my ball in your yard… do you see it? Can you throw it back?”

He looks to his brother again. But instead of throwing it back over, Erst says, “Can you climb up?”

“S-sure!”

Ghift gets to his feet and does not think for a moment about what their parents might say about this, or what his brother is trying to do. He hears scuffling on the other side of the wall and sounds progress higher and higher up. It is insurmountably high for his hands but in almost no time, a young boy’s face, around his own age, pops over the top. His cheeks are flushed almost as red as his hair but his smile is wide.

“Hi! I’m Folth!”

“Hi.” In an instant his brother’s face transforms into an expression that makes him look like a whole other person. He is smiling wide back, so wide it makes his eyes squint. Not a shadow to be found. “I’m Erst. This is my little brother, Ghift.”

The red-haired boy looks at him with such intense interest it makes him squirm. Suddenly he feels ‘seen’ in a way he never has been before. “I don’t know you. Are you new?”

“Umm.” He’s not sure how to explain anything to this stranger. Thankfully Erst cuts in to save him.

“He’s a bit shy. So he hasn’t been out much.” He throws the ball into the air just enough that it hollowly thuds back into his palms. The red-haired boy’s face turns to follow it. “In exchange for your ball, could you play with him a little? I’m afraid he’ll never make friends on his own.”

Ghift’s heart swells with wounded pride and betrayal; he’d never guessed his brother could be so cold as to throw him to the wolves, someone who undoubtedly has better things to do than take pity on a boy he doesn’t know.

But the boy happily nods, and while Ghift anxiously reads his face, there is nothing that makes him doubt its sincerity. Erst can sometimes smile, with his eyes still cold. “’course! We can play ball together!”

The red-haired boy’s face drops out of view. On the other side he hears him scrambling back down the rocks, and the soft stepping sound of grass, fading away. On this side, his own breath and his heartbeat ringing in his ears. What’s going to happen?

“What’s going to happen is you’re going to get out of the house.”

Oops. “I can’t… what about mom and dad?”

“They won’t even notice you’re gone.”

It’s probably true. He’s not sure what other protest he can make, other than ‘I don’t want to’. If he screamed and threw a fit, really dug his heels in, he could stay. But he knows how his brother would look at him. And that’d he’d be disappointed. And there are so few chances to make him proud of him.

Erst at least walks with him to the front gate, instead of handing the ball (and him) off. “He looks like a nice kid. Give him a try, and I think you’ll surprise yourself.”

He’s wondering how you ‘give someone a try’ right up to the gate. The red-haired boy—Folth—actually hops a little in place. “We’re gonna have tons of fun! I’ll show you around, okay!” He even looks at him more than the ball, with eyes bright and sparkling violet.

“...okay.” If he does ‘give him a try’ at least he’ll be able to tell Erst he did as much when it doesn’t work out.”


	5. cookie jar

Ghift went into that outing, and all the ones following it, half-heartedly. But the red-haired boy, Folth, no surname, continued inviting him to his games with an easygoing determination. He isn’t sure why he keeps going. Folth wins all their games. Maybe just because he’s nice? Erst had been right about that; even when he isn’t smiling he can still feel it around him like an aura of friendliness. And he glides through his difficult moods that his own brother often only sighs at.

Still, it’s not like they’re friends. They barely know each other.

So he’s not sure why he’s feeling this way.

 _This_ time instead of traipsing around the neighborhood they’re on the path outside his house. Erst had been in one of his good moods and came out to see them play together, but for once he wishes he’d go away. Being bad at kickball and sword-fighting is bad enough when the only ones who know are himself and Folth. He doesn’t need his big brother to know as well.

He can live without the helpful tips, too. And yet for every ‘kick in the direction you’re looking’ and ‘bend your knees a little more’ he’s helpless to do anything but try.

It’s coming on summer. The sun is already high and hot for the season, serving as much a challenge for his hermit’s constitution as his actual opponent. As the day goes on he’s a little faint, soaked and frankly gross with sweat, while Folth has a healthy pink glow to his face. Sometimes life really isn’t fair.

“You should get a drink,” Folth says, probably noticing for himself the difference in their conditions. “Maybe sit down a bit? I can get some chalk from home, and we can do that instead!”

“The sidewalks are too hot,” he grumbles, but a nice cold glass of water sounds pretty great, so he goes in.

Inside he lets the door slowly latch behind him—as Erst also predicted, their parents don’t ever seem to notice whether he’s around or not. Mom only reminded him once when he came back in to put his muddy shoes in the backroom, and only because she had been in the hall skimming through the mail. He still doesn’t want to call attention to his comings-and-goings, though, or their inattentiveness.

Getting to the cupboards at his height means dragging a chair over. As he contemplates a way to do this as quietly as possible, he realizes there’s pitchers under the sink. He can water himself and show how thoughtful he is! Folth must be thirsty too, even his brother, sitting in the sun.

He goes to the extra trouble of getting it from the mysteriously better-tasting kitchen sink instead of the bathroom one, even though it means blindly plopping it in and using the broom to nudge the knob to on. A few handfuls of ice complete it. After a few close calls getting it back out of the sink with only the rim to hold onto, he grasps it carefully at the bottom and leans the rest into his chest so it doesn’t slip away from him. The outside of the glass is already getting misty with water droplets. Getting a hand free to open the front door is possibly the most tense thing he’s done in his entire life.

They’re not waiting for him like he’d hoped, so they’d see him first thing.

Erst is out on the street with Folth, bouncing the ball skillfully between both legs, heels and knees. He doesn’t even have to look down to do it. His eyes instead are focused on Folth, who is beaming with delight and clapping like he’s cheering on an athlete and not some guy he barely knows.

Something in Ghift’s chest tightens. For just a moment, with them watching each other, he is lost. “Stop showing off,” he calls out sourly, liking even less how Erst jumps and loses the ball. Yeah, maybe he just startled him. But he doubts it.

Once when Ghift was sneaking in the treat cupboard, he jumped the same way when Erst sternly said his name from the doorway. Because he had been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to be doing.

Erst recovers more smoothly than he had, however. “What took you so long?”

“Unlike you, I know how to be a good host.” He tries to smile, so it doesn’t come out quite as sharp as he feels at the moment.

“He makes one friend, and he’s a master host.”

“Erst.” The sound of Folth’s chiding is much sweeter than his big brother’s. He’s never been able to continue doing anything for long when Folth sees fit to use it on him, and he is not surprised (though his chest tightens again) that his big brother obediently goes quiet. “Let’s all take a break.”

Ghift allows his hard-won prize to be taken into Erst’s sturdier arms. They thank him as lightly as if he’d only held a door open, and after drinking he is no more sated than when he went inside, though he downs two glasses before his brother tells him to stop, for crying out loud, or he’ll give himself cramps.


	6. ツンツン

It’s a quiet day, like the ones he was very familiar with not long ago. Folth is sick with a cold. Erst has been holed up in his room. His parents are down in the basement. He has no clear idea yet of what it is they do there but he knows it means he will be alone for quite a while. He hadn’t been lately with Folth always harassing him. Maybe it spoiled him a little. Playing by himself doesn’t hold his attention like it used to, and he can’t nap long enough to sleep the day away. For lack of anything else to do he decides to go bother his brother.

Erst has never scared him, exactly. But it’s still intimidating to stand before his door and know he’s going to get him annoyed at him as soon as he starts knocking. The thought annoys him in turn and he knocks a little more stridently than necessary.

“What.”

Ghift has considered his plan of attack. If he just says he’s bored or wants attention, he’ll get told to scram. But if it’s something he needs, Erst will have no choice but to tend to him. “I’m hungry. Mom only made me a sandwich for dinner.” There’s a grain of truth to it. He’s not hungry and she made two, actually, but he figures he’s due to start growing any day now and will need the food.

He hears a loud groan from inside the room, then several seconds of shuffling before the door creaks open. Erst stands before him with an air of general glowering, already dressed for bed in an old shirt and his boxers, before leading the way. Ghift follows a little behind so he can see all the cowlicks in his hair from above while going down the stairs.

He’s always thought they were kinda cute. There’s a few in his own hair, but it’s otherwise smooth if a little wavy. It’s a physical reminder of the blood they share. If their parents have them too, he’s never seen them. Their dad always wears his hair very short, and their mom keeps her hair so neatly coiffed not a strand goes away, let alone a whole lock.

He sits himself at the dinner table as Erst rummages through the shelves, grumbling to himself. “Sometimes I’m amazed I lived past infancy.”

“You don’t have a big brother for you,” Ghift says, intending it as a sort of thanks for his care, instead of pointing out that he is alive so what’s there to complain about? Erst shoots him a dirty look.

“I wasn’t born to take care of you.”

It’s not like he thought so, but hearing it so flat like that, like he means nothing at all to him, stings. “What _were_ you born for?” he asks, as obnoxiously snotty as he can manage.

Erst pauses, hand lingering on the pot he just placed on top of the oven. He doesn’t answer but the clattering of the can and opener being brought out becomes more of a slamming noise.

Soon the kitchen fills with the smell of soup… cold and raw at first, then a homey mix of warm broth, beef, and assorted veggies. Ghift still has no appetite. His brother isn’t helping. As the soup cooks he’s sat himself across from him, for the longest time just eyeballing him. “Have mom and dad,” he starts, at the end of this long length of silence, “talked to you about what _you_ were born for?”

“Huh? Me?”

“You’re getting to be old enough. And you’re still a kid. Even if someone knew what you were running your mouth about, they’d think you were making it up.”

“Making what up?”

Erst taps his fingers on the table, all one after the other in a row, again and again. “Listen… I’m thinking in a few years, I’m going to school in Savorle.”

“...huh!? Where?” He barely knows where he goes to school in the first place. And why is this coming up so suddenly, with all this other weird talk? “Is that… a different part of town or something?”

“It’s a city, silly.”

“City…” He barely knows anything about the place they live. ‘City’ is a word he knows and has heard, but it is next to zero on how meaningful it is to him. It might as well be downtown. He attempts to process this as his second dinner is prepared for him. It smells nice, but the bowl sat in front of him makes his appetite inverse into the negatives—or maybe that’s just his anxiety over this conversation. He bides time by stirring around the chunks inside. “Why?”

“Stop playing with your food.” Erst frowns for a moment, then he’s tapping, tapping again, and Ghift realizes each time he does it his belly grows even tighter. “I want to be a Summoner. I want to be… the opposite of what they want. I have for a long time.” He smiles dryly. “That’s probably the reason you were born.”

Ghift sips some of the soup to spare himself a few seconds to think. It feels like Erst is more talking _at_ him than _to_ him, about something only he knows about. But he’s interested in the possible circumstances of his birth. “I was born because of you?”

“Do our parents look like they love each other to you? Neither of us had any possibility of being an accident. Why do you think we’re so far apart in age?”

“I dunno,” he mumbles. Never mind, it’s just more stuff he doesn’t get. Their parents are their parents. That’s all there is to that. And as for their age differences, well, it’s not like he knows any other siblings. Why wouldn’t they be normal?”

“They gave up on me. That’s why. Easier to start over.”

Ghift has given up on games, staying awake, falling asleep, stolen sweets, bedtime stories, and company. How do you give up on a son? He has no desire to know. Erst is being so weird it’s frustrating and creeping him out. He’d rather be alone again now so he can at least gather his thoughts, if not ignore all this entirely. If he was a little older… if his parents already had this ‘talk’ with him… then maybe they could communicate.

He slips out of his chair. “Your soup is always grosser than mom’s.”

Erst immediately looks irritated again, but at least that’s predictable. “It’s out of a can either way. Get your butt back in your seat.”

“Don’t want to.”

The chair behind him squeaks. Ghift quickens his pace into as much of a casual power-walk as his short legs can manage, so he doesn’t seem too concerned or anything. But then his brother says his name in a suppressed, drawn-out growl that works on his nervous system the same way a snake’s hiss must on a mouse. He makes a run for it just in time to feel the back of his shirt snag for one split-second. The children’s bedrooms don’t have locks and he’d never make it up the stairs. Diving into the bathroom is his only hope.

In a straight sprint he’d never make it there either but with adrenaline and his smaller size he can shoot through the sitting between table and couches, and they’ve done this often enough for one reason or another that he’s learned to tightly turn the corner without slipping. In the end he manages to slam and lock the bathroom door behind him by the skin of his teeth; Erst thumps against the other side shoulder-first, then starts hammering on it.

For the next half hour he hears him pacing around outside, threatening to murder him in increasingly creative ways. It’s nice. Well, it isn’t---but it is, too. For right now his attention is squarely on him, instead of whatever he mopes about in his room, or whatever his thing is with their parents. Ghift doesn’t say anything back. Erst can go on quite a while like this when he gets started.

But eventually he loses interest, and Ghift decides to give himself up to prolong his attention on him. As soon as he steps outside the door Erst grabs him in a headlock and noogies him until he stomps on his feet in retaliation.

He is returned to his stone-cold soup tired, with a burning scalp, but otherwise happy.


	7. a child is a gift

“Oof!” He lands right on his butt in the leaves, sending a jolt of pain up his body to compete with the burning in his fingers.

Folth kneels by him and looks suitably apologetic. “Sorry, I got your fingers.”

He sniffles. “You sure did.” His first urge is to stick them in his mouth and suck on them, but he blows instead. Right along under his nails feels like a sausage about to burst in the microwave.

“Here, let me see.”

Folth takes his hand and does what he had kept himself from doing. He takes the tips of all his fingers minus the thumb into his mouth and gently sucks with a warm, wet little tongue that massages soothingly into the nailbeds. Ghift makes an initial sound of protest but it’s super nice, even better than doing it to himself, and not just in his fingers. The longer it goes on, the warmer his whole body gets.

His fingers are all soaked with Folth’s spit when he finally gets them back, which just makes him want to suck on them more. He wipes them off on his pants instead. “Gross.”

“But they feel better now, right?”

“Maybe...”

He picks his wooden sword back up and begins the walk together out of the park. All day he’s felt gloomy and at odds with the cool weather and Folth’s carefree smile. Erst told him he has to go to school soon, where he can learn things and ‘make friends’. Isn’t just the one enough? At first the thought of being in a new place with strangers was tempered with thinking he could be with Erst all day, but Erst said they probably won’t see each other at all since their grades are far apart. If anyone, he’ll be seeing Folth all day.

Folth’s okay, but...

He was even desperate enough to go to dad about it, and he told him flatly he had no choice in the matter. The whole thing sucks. Why can’t Erst teach him at home?

And today he lost another playfight.

It’s hard for him to know how opaque he is with his moods. Erst is more and more dense as a brick. Mom and dad tell him what’s going to happen and it happens, however he might feel about it. They don’t need to see. How much of him does Folth see?

Maybe a little, at least. On the walk proper towards home he says, “Why don’t you stay at my house tonight, so I can tell you about school?” His smile is wide, with his eyes squeezing a little the way Erst’s do.

“You’ve been?” Ghift asks sharply. He was under the impression this would be the first for them both. Thinking that had given him a sense of camaraderie, if nothing else.

“Daycare, but mom says it’s about the same.”

They arrive at Ghift’s home, which he has only come to recently notice looks out of place with the rest of the town. He leaves Folth outside to consult his brother, who he finds reading in a window seat. For a moment he stands and watches him, a little scared to get his attention. It’s a cool day but the sun is out and shining in through the window, turning Erst’s hair golden-brown, and settling a halo over his skin. It makes him look remote. Like he might not respond even just to speak if Ghift comes up to him.

But he walks as confidently forward as he can and Erst’s face turns to meet his. “Folth wants to know if I can stay at his house. So we can talk about school and stuff.”

“A sleepover? Aren’t you getting to be a big boy!”

It sounds like he might be teasing, but Ghift allows himself to preen a little anyway. It’s true, after all. “Can I?”

“I think it’d be good for you. I guess you should ask mom or dad, but…” He shrugs. “If you wanna get your things and go, I’ll talk to them. I doubt they’d bother showing up on Folth’s doorstep in any case, but we’ll cover our bases, right?”

“O-okay. Clothes?”

“And a toothbrush, unless you want to be using your little friend’s.”

Ghift automatically replies ‘gross’ even though he’s had his fill already of spit. One time Erst scolded him for licking a cut clean instead of washing with water and disinfectant. ‘Your mouth is all germy,’ he said, just like Folth’s mouth must be, though it didn’t feel like it.

Erst smiles, and leans in so close their foreheads bonk. “Have fun, okay?”

His throat clicks. “Sure.” They’re rarely this close. Erst’s eyes are honey-colored and big, even squeezed slightly at the corners. His breath is on his skin. His brother’s mouth. If his brother had sucked on his fingers like that...

He jerks away. “Folth’s waiting. Gotta go.”

Without really understanding why, he retreats up into his room. _What was that?_ he wonders. _What was that?_ His heart is beating so hard he feels sick.

Focus on the sleepover. His first night in another house. An old knit purse of his mom’s is big enough to carry what little he can think of. A blue cotton gown—or nightshirt, growing shorter day by day, plain shirt and shorts for the next day that he will also have outgrown soon. A flat plastic toothbrush, bristles slightly moist from this morning.

He creeps back down to check on Erst, sees him with his nose back in his book, and skitters on out.

It’s still a light early evening. It’ll be a few hours yet before he would usually be supposed to be back home. Plenty of time for them to play before dinner and washing-up. And teeth-brushing.

He hangs back as they approach Folth’s house. He’s seen it often from the outside when coming to meet him. It’s a lot smaller than his, even down to the yard. An enormous green-smelling tree hangs shade over it, and the rows of bushes and plant-life on either side give it a cozy, closed-in look.

His palm runs over the peeling-off paint on the rail up the porch stairs before holding on tight to the post. It gets realer the closer he gets. Kids probably do stuff like this all the time, but he feels ridiculous now, standing here with this cast-off ladies’ bag. Do Folth’s parents even know he’s coming? Uuugh, so awkward.

“I’ll introduce you,” Folth says, in what is probably supposed to be a reassurance. He’d be way more reassured if they were just gone for the night. “They’re not scary at all.”

“I-I’m not scared!”

Folth knocks on the door to his own house. Within moments a woman and presumably the mother of the household opens up, wiping her hands off on her apron. A smell of savory meat drifts out with her. Ghift cannot tell very well the difference in adult ages, but she is more wrinkled in the face than his mother, her posture more bent, and her pulled-back hair shows the start of grey in the otherwise red. “Welcome home, Folth. Is this your friend we’ve heard so much about?”

“Mom, this is Ghift, Ghift, mom! He can stay tonight, right?”

Ghift tries to meet her eyes but ends up staring at the porch floor. “Hello.” In that fleeting moment they were looking at each other, she smiled, all wide like her son does, with the same rosy cheeks.

“Well! I’m sure we can accommodate for dinner… and if not, he can have your father’s second helpings.” They titter together, and with a wave of relief, Ghift takes this to mean he’s not going to get sent back after all.

Inside is much the same as the outside; small, worn spots in the carpeting and an ingrown dullness to the wooden floors, but not at all unpleasant. Folth’s bed creaks a lot but the blankets are soft, with pillows and a comforter stuffed full to bursting. In here especially the colors of everything are vibrant, not just in the deep purple he seems to favor, but the quality of light dancing in from the window like a mellow shaft of lemon-gold. A multi-colored woven play rug sits in the middle of where the light gathers, warming under it. There are similar rugs in his house that he’d get put in his room for bothering with (and dripping paint on, judging by a few splotches).

They dig through the toy box together and he is delighted under his attempts to maintain composure that Folth has so many new toys; most of his are hand-me-downs from Erst, faded and missing parts. They play very destructively with some dolls and building blocks, adding pieces as their play calls for. Folth is teaching him how to play checkers and talking about the ins-and-outs of daycare when dinner is called.

He sits on the same adult-sized chair with him so they can eat side by side. Otherwise he might be too nervous. The smell of the food upsets his stomach even more, and there’s a ton of it. The plate he gets handed is piled high with snowy mounds of mashed potatoes cratered with a lake of gravy, carrots, green beans, and a juicy slab of steak. He’s always been a peckish eater, but even so, he’s amazed Folth is so shrimpy if this is what his diet’s like. Maybe this is how much energy it takes up when you’re good at sports.

None of them mind him being quiet or speak to him much. Folth asking for the occasional affirmation is all, and that’s fine by him. He can nibble and watch. Most of the dinner conversation volleys between mother and son, with interjections from the father. The noisiness isn’t ‘pleasant’ exactly, but it’s an awing experience. Dinner for him has been quiet, with nearly always only him and Erst. There’s never any of this free chatter, the loud clatter of silverware, hands reaching across the table, joking and laughter.

As soon as things seem to be wrapping up he retreats without a word to Folth’s bedroom, and is grateful when he follows too. As amazing a thing as dinner was to see, it has left him a little overwhelmed as well. His chest hurts.

“Do you take baths alone?”

“Kind of,” Ghift reluctantly admits. He doesn’t want to look like a baby if Folth is that grown, but also isn’t eager to volunteer for his first solo bath in a stranger’s bathroom. The past few months Erst has stopped bathing with him. He just sits on the toilet and watches. If he wanted to bathe on a different schedule Ghift could at least see the sense in that, but usually he kicks him out and takes his own right after he’s done.

“I just started, but it’s really lonely. Let’s take a bath together!”

He didn’t particularly want this, either, but he’s already dragged him so far along. Might as well go the rest of the way.

They undress together without modesty, in a room so small their elbows brush as clothing comes off. Beyond the healthy peach of his arms and legs Folth is almost as fish-belly white as he is. Otherwise they look pretty much the same. Soft and chubby.

Folth runs the water a little higher than he’s used to, a little hotter. He can actually feel his skin turning pink when he steps one foot in, then the other. Between his legs hurts even more when he tries to sit. The water comes up to his belly button instead of around his hips. Erst was always worried about him hurting himself, even when he was right there.

Folth sits behind him. The water level rises just a bit more. “Do you want to wash yourself? Or I can help you, if you help me.”

Ghift nods a little. He misses that. Even when his brother was sighing, his hands never hurt as he massaged his scalp or back with soap, though they could be a little demanding about keeping him in place.

Folth’s hands are so different from Erst’s, they don’t being up any brotherly nostalgia. Too small and soft. But they’re Folth’s hands, his friend’s, so he finds himself relaxing into the touch anyway. After his hair is full of suds Folth reaches over the edge of the tub and passes him something that looks like a plastic hat, ‘so no soap in your eyes’. He needs help putting it in; he’s only covered and squeezed his eyes shut for this part.

Maybe he should insist on one of these when he gets home. The water has cooled to where it doesn’t burn. It and the soap run off the bill like rain running off the roof of his house.

Once he’s all squeaky-clean they turn in place. Folth’s naked back and nape are so… naked, for lack of a better word. And they’re being offered to his touch like this. He places both of his hands uncertainly under his shoulders blades, where he can feel his ribs shift with his breathing. Erst wouldn’t feel like this. Slightly squishy, soft as whipped cream. Even back when they bathed together he was pretty lean. But he wishes he knew that firsthand, to compare this to.

So nice. Folth is so nice and warm. He tries to imitate his careful washing so he can take his time without coming off creepy. He’s not just washing him. Even at this age, he knows that. He’s feeling him. He’d stay like this for much longer if the water wasn’t going cold.

They dress in their bedtime clothes like awkward storks. He doesn’t need to sit on the toilet anymore to put underwear on but he still wobbles one-legged. To brush teeth they crowd together at the sink on the same kiddy stool, scrubbing diligently at their gums and nubs of milk teeth. Folth has his mouth open so wide he can see inside to the kitten tongue amid the foam. His fingers had been in there. The thought makes him squirmy in his belly.

At first he’s not sure how well he’ll sleep but after the busy day he’s quite tired. Maybe he won’t keep himself up. And under the same covers he finds that Folth is still warm, outside that too-hot bathwater. The bed was obviously meant for a single child and perhaps soon to be outgrown, so they have to press close. It’s like being curled up with his own personal heater.

He’d been happy gazing at the back of Folth’s head, but as they wind themselves down with sleepy chatter, he turns over so their faces are a scant few inches away. “It was fun today.”

“Yeah…”

“I wanna spend the night with you sometime too.”

“Uh… I dunno… Erst...”

Folth’s expression turns sweet and dreamy. “It must be so cool to have a big brother like him! I wish I had one.”

“He’s okay,” he replies lightly. There are plenty of words he has to describe Erst (some less flattering than others depending on the day) but hearing someone fawning over him brings up a hard protective feeling inside him. “Have you asked your parents?”

“Mh-hmm. They said it took a long time to have me, so prob’ly not.”

How hard can having kids be? Erst made it sound like theirs had him right when they decided to. Then again, his parents… maybe that is how it works for them. It’s for the best Folth doesn’t have any siblings, anyway. If he did, he wouldn’t want to spend as much time together.

Cocooned in warmth with nonsense being murmured to him, he falls asleep.


	8. 1123

“I’m going out with some friends,” Erst calls to him by the front door, already putting his shoes on. Before Ghift can protest he adds, “Wanna come with?”

Is this a trick? Ghift waits a moment to see if the offer is rescinded or turned around, but his brother just looks at him, eyebrow raised. Well. Well… maybe it would be fine, just to keep an eye on Erst, and see what he gets up to when he’s out of the house. He’s still suspicious, but he nods his head. Maybe Erst thinks he can trust him since he’s made a friend of his own. Trust him not to be a social dummy.

Not trusted for much, if that’s the case. Erst holds his hand as they walk down a few blocks into town to meet his friends (a group of mostly boys) and they coo over his ‘cute little brother’ for maybe half a minute. It doesn’t make him shy, but he averts his face by hiding it behind Erst’s arm.

Earlier in the morning… maybe that’s why Erst is taking him out. Earlier in the morning, his parents sat him down in the living room after his usual breakfast, and truly spoke to him for the first time he can remember. They told him what the surname Brattern signifies; the last lineage of the Colorless Faction after its forced disbandment, bred from the strongest that remained. And he, Ghift, was born to continue this lineage, and carry on their beliefs.

What it meant to him was meaning. And he understood; he and his blood were special. If he had ever felt his parents to be cold or neglectful, what of it? You don’t need to love a tool. It serves a purpose.

He is not sure yet how to make his ancestors proud. For now, all he knows is that he is different.

He (and his brother) are above these commonplace children.

They mistake his aversion for shyness and coos some more. Erst promises everyone will be nice if he wants to play too, but he sits on the sidelines to watch instead. They play soccer, kickball, and tag. He looks at all of them a little, but mostly he keeps his eye on his brother. Before, the only thing he thought about his brother’s appearance was simply ‘this is how my older brother looks’. Only now with so many others to compare him to does he realize he’s attractive. 

It’s something more than just the nicely-shaped features of his face. It’s a glow inside him, a vibrancy to every expression and gesture. Even in a crowd the eye is naturally drawn to him. It’s a joy to watch him in motion as well. In every aspect he outpaces the others; faster, more stamina, a stronger kick, a farther throw, all with a deer-like elegance. His legs have gotten so long. Everyone fights to have him on their team, and wherever he ends up he is MVP. Ghift is sure their parents would be proud if they saw him like this. Maybe they did notice once, before he rejected them.

The games wind down as evening approaches. He is not surprised that they say goodbye and goodnight in a loose circle around Erst. And Erst, in the midst of them, smiles benignly, like a shepherd overlooking his sheep. There is no particular warmth to it. If any of these people actually knew Erst, they would know it too.

Benign, but distant. When they clap him on the shoulder or bicep, he does not return the gesture. One of the few girls in the group comes in close to his side, and appears to be saying something quietly. She looks up at him and gives him the same big, awestruck eyes Folth does. He turns his face to her, enough to show the smile, and jogs over to where Ghift sits.

For him, the smile becomes a real one. “Weren’t you bored, just sitting all day?”

“No. I had fun watching.”

They walk back home together, sweaty hand in hand. Even when the air is still he can smell him. Slightly musky, but not bad. “How’s first-grade?”

“Okay.”

“Making friends?”

Are _you_? he wonders. “Folth is in my class.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being an introvert. But you should get along with others, too…”

“Mhmm...”

Erst sighs, but he’s apparently in too good a mood to harangue. “How’s… Folth doing?”

“Good. He makes friends like you do.” Except he’s seen Folth actually smile at their peers. “The teachers like him, too. He always asks for a pass to go pee.” Earlier in the week he’d brought a note home about him slipping out of the classroom to use the toilet. His parents hadn’t cared one whit either way, but Erst had a good chuckle. He still doesn’t see the point of passes. He doesn’t need one to go pee at home.

“Schoolwork doing okay?”

“Yeah. It’s mostly baby stuff though.” At least so far he’s been able to breeze through his lessons. Simple reading and math, with the occasional educational art project. Toe to toe with Folth.

“You’ve got my smarts.” As they come up the stairs Erst parts his hand from his to ruffle his hair. Ghift tries his hardest to keep from beaming, but he can’t control the heat rising in his cheeks. “That reminds me. I keep most of my old school papers. Want to see?”

“S-sure.”

Up in his room, he pulls out a box under his bed Ghift had no clue was even there. It’s filled with folders and papers yet to be organized, some dated as early as last week. Ghift thumbs through a few of them. High 90s all around, when not flat perfect. Much of the material is barely comprehensible to him. Words his eyes slide right off of, and math filled with symbols that look like they should be illegal. When he’s as old as Erst he assumes (hopes, at least) this will make sense to him, but for now he’s filled with a sad sort of awe. If he knew what all this was, he could properly appreciate how clever his brother is. “Do you still want to go to, um...”

“Savorle? Yeah. I know early school grades don’t matter that much, but I hope they’ll will help me to get in. The papers are just a nice memento---and they’re good study guides, too.”

“If it’s you,” he says slowly, “I’m sure you’ll make it.” Erst intends to leave them. He knows that now. And not just in a matter of distance. To become a Life Resonance Summoner. The thought makes him feel all kinds of things he doesn’t know what to do with yet. “But you’ll still come back sometimes, right?”

“Just for you and Folth.”

The thought should make him happy, and it does. His big brother will come back to see him. But. “Why Folth?”

“I’d be leaving you in his care, after all. I have to make sure you’re behaving.”

“Folth’s not my babysitter.”

“You kinda need one, though. And whatever mom and dad had to say to you… don’t take it seriously, okay? All they are are the last remnants of something that should have disappeared a long time ago.”

The next day at school as class readies for the morning, Folth comes to visit at his desk like always. As he goes on and on about all the people he knows and events he’s been a part of lately, Ghift is compelled to share what he knows in an attempt to show up.

His information has the effect he wants, although he considers too late Folth’s adoration increasing. Maybe because to him, the only important thing to consider is Erst leaving and choosing a different path from their family By the time he’s finished Folth’s eyes have about doubled in size, and a sweet pink color has filled his cheeks.

“That’s so cool!” he immediately declares. “Of course Erst would decided to be something like that… I know he can do it! He’s so nice!”

After yesterday he’s sure of the same. He doesn’t need his friend saying it, though. How can he make him talk about him like that…? “Yeah, that’s my brother alright. The people person.”


	9. エロスト

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i sure write erst getting overheard a lot

Ghift surveys his finished project with as much of a clinical eye as an elementary schooler can manage. One of the take-home assignments was to depict to the best of one’s ability any manner of Summon Beast, to ‘foster familiarity and friendship’. In the words of his peers, it is ‘easy work’, at least for those who don’t take their futures seriously.

Erst is probably correct in thinking that someone twenty years from now won’t care about a childhood art project, but there is still the spirit of the thing, and learning a good work ethic. That, he can cultivate. Besides. Folth is by his own admission no good at artwork. This could be his chance to do better than him for once, instead of squeaking even on practical tests and falling behind in gym. Except he’s pretty sure the super-cool glittery unicorn-type he’s been working on has turned instead into a misbegotten marshmallow on stalks.

Even if it turns out well relative to the other students’, it doesn’t live up to his own standards. He sighs. He’ll take it up to Erst, and see whether he thinks it’s worth re-doing or not, though the thought of showing it to him makes him a little anxious. He’s never seen Erst draw anything, but he has the haunting suspicion that when he does, it turns out perfectly.

He travels upstairs with his construction paper carefully held out face-up so he doesn’t get glitter all over the floor. Mom would kill him, and then kill Erst for giving him glitter, and then Erst would kill him too.

He stands in front of Erst’s door for a moment trying to figure out how to knock, and a split-second after realizing he can just say something, notices he can hear a noise very quiet, almost lost under the sound of his own breathing.

It sounds like another set of breathing noises… but faster than his own. It’s more like a light panting sound. His first thought is actually that Erst snuck a dog inside, but it doesn’t sound like a dog. It sounds like Erst. Unease coils in his chest. Maybe he’s sick. He seemed perfectly fine an hour ago, though… or maybe he wasn’t feeling well and was just hiding it!? That’s a pretty big brother thing to do.

He tentatively calls his name.

Inside the room goes very quiet. Erst mutters something that sounds like a swear.

The door opens. In a slow, controlled way that might be ominous with how annoyed he looks, but Ghift easily overlooks that when he sees confirmation of his worries. He must be cold, and feverish. He came to the door with his blanket hanging on his shoulders like a shawl, and the color of his skin is high, from cheeks to sweat-drenched forehead.

“What.” Even his voice sounds trembly and raspy. “What could you possibly want.”

“Well, I was gonna ask… um, do you feel okay?”

“I’m fine.” He looks down between them. “Is it about your homework?”

“It was, but when I came up I heard you breathing funny, so…” He trails off. Erst’s face is turning an alarming shade of brick-red.

“You didn’t hear anything. And you’re not going to _tell_ anyone you heard anything.”

“But---”

“No! If you don’t need something then scram.”

The door shuts in his face with a little more force than needed. Ghift waits just in case but hears nothing inside except a single sigh. Hmph, then. All he was was concerned for him. There was no reason whatsoever to brush him off like that! If he was one of his friends… or Folth… he’d have played nice, even if he had to fake it.

The rest of the evening passes awkwardly. Erst barely looks at him at dinner without turning red again, then gets grouchy when Ghift tries to make conversation. Whatever, he’s over it.

The next morning he is satisfied by the teacher’s evaluation of his project. Nice use of material and color, fills space nicely, a solid 100. It’s slightly lessened when Folth gets the same grade for a blobby figure with spaghetti-limbs wearing a bandanna, but he assumes they’re pity points because he looks so happy about it.

When he gets home he sort of… hangs around… on the second floor. Just in case the big dummy really is sick and needs someone to call for help. After a few days of this and cautiously walking around his door, he’s almost ready to give up when he hears it again.

And Erst was definitely, definitely fine earlier in the day; he threatened to keelhaul him for eating the rest of the cereal and only an hour earlier shut him in the closet until he apologized for calling him a dumbbutt. Maybe it’s some kind of exercise?

The sound grows both higher-pitched and more muffled. Like he’s whimpering while biting his lip or something. The only other possibility Ghift can think of is that he’s hurt, but he’s not sure what kind of hurt could make someone make noises like that. He steps a bit closer to the door, on his tiptoes so the boards don’t creak, and presses his ear to it. It sounds like the bedsprings are creaking a little. Maybe crunches? It would have to be a lot of crunches.

Then even below the bedsprings, he hears a noise he can’t explain at all. A kind of wet… squidgy noise. The closest thing he can compare it to is a thicker version of someone running their hands under water. His heart starts pounding in his head; he thinks again of his fingers in Folth’s mouth, of his fingers in his brother’s mouth—maybe the sound of his saliva and tongue on his skin would make a similar noise.

Erst sucks in his breath, and breathes out in a long, wavery exhale mixed with the word ‘fuck’ over and over again, so quiet. The back of his neck prickles with heat and wonder. He’s never heard his brother swear any harder than the occasional ‘damn’. The wet sound continues for maybe five more seconds… then stops. The bed creaking, too. All he hears now is the panting sound again. When Erst collects himself enough that even that stops, he heads back into his own room.

He cuddles in the blankets of his bed and shivers hot and cold. What happened? And his head… this image won’t leave. If Erst… his mouth… it won’t go away, and as awful as it makes him feel to think about, because brothers don’t go sucking on each other’s fingers, even he knows that much, he doesn’t want to stop, either.


	10. forelsket

The next morning he sort-of fakes sick. There probably isn’t anything actually wrong with him, but he is all out of sorts. Since last night he’s hardly slept. His head keeps repeating thoughts of Erst, and Folth, whatever happened last evening that he wasn’t supposed to listen to, and this strange tension in his body.

Erst goes to school like normal. He seemed fine again when he felt Ghift’s forehead, and pronounced him clammy, then promised to talk to his teacher. “I’ll let mom and dad know, too. Tell them if you get hungry.” He kissed his forehead. The burning imprint of it lasted long after he left.

After an hour or so has passed, long enough that he can be sure Erst won’t turn back and suddenly reappear at an inconvenient time, he sneaks out of his bed into his brother’s room.

Without any idea of what he is looking for, he searches for anything that could be the source of that noise. Nothing stands out of the ordinary. Nothing in the bathroom shelves, nothing hidden among his underwear, or with his papers under the bed. The only thing that leaves… is that it’s a sound he somehow made with his own body.

He curls up in his brother’s bed. He hasn’t done this for a while, at least since starting school. It doesn’t leave him as enveloped as it once did—he’s grown lately, but the smell is deeper. He inhales. He’s noticed he’s been able to smell Erst more lately, especially when he’s been outside all day. Sometimes it makes his nose wrinkle. But it’s a lot softer in his blankets, and gentler, while still being ‘Erst’.

Something clenches desperately inside his belly. So hard he can’t help whimpering a little. Maybe he’s sick after all, nausea, fever, bellyache, should just go back to his own bed and sleep off this communicable disease so he can wake up and pretend nothing happened. Because that must be what occurred. His brother was ill with something and gave it to him.

He smushes his cheek into his brother’s pillow and rubs it back and forth in hopes that he can jam the smell of it up his nose and into his brain. Vertigo overtakes him even though he’s flat on his belly. His fingers find their way into his mouth, like an anchor to weigh him still. With the smell he can pretend instead—a thought entirely new to him—that he is sucking on Erst’s fingers. The clenching in his belly plummets to between his legs.

He rubs his waist into the sheets to try to relieve it, taking the pleasure it gives him in stride. It’s not too different from how it feels to scratch a mosquito bite, or to rub his feet on a rug when they itch. The fact that he has never ‘itched’ there, and that touching himself in that place is rude anyway, is for a moment lost in the building haze of his body.

If Erst touched him where it itches---

His body culminates into a trembling fit as he sucks fervently on his drool-soppy fingers, with a wash of tingling warmth that, though still centered at his sex, runs from crown to toe. A noise of some kind builds up and dies in his numb throat.

Suddenly he is completely exhausted. He sighs, breathes in (sooo good) and allows all the tension to leave him until he’s as limp as a dead fish. There’s not even enough energy left to wipe his fingers off. They lie where his brother rests his cheek every night, wet and wrinkled. Sleep comes so quickly it doesn’t even register as drowsiness. One moment he is aware and comfortable, contently thrumming inside his skin, and the next waking back up.

Erst is kneeling beside him, stroking his hair. “Hey there, crybaby. Did you miss me? How do you feel?”

“Mhmmm…”

“Are you hungry?”

“Mmm… yeah.”

He shivers a little when the blanket and cocoon of warmth is pulled from him. Then Erst’s big, strong hands are under his thighs and chest, lifting him up. For a few seconds he is weightless until he is nestled close to his brother’s chest and grounded against it. His heartbeat beats with vigor against his cheek.

Ghift struggles with his illness for the rest of the day. But Erst is an accommodating mood, and always close at hand. When he calls him ‘crybaby’, tonight it is with love.


	11. 月明り

Third grade has not changed much for him. He still feels weird when he thinks too long about either his brother or Folth. Erst runs hot and cold, sugar and ice, from day to day whenever he’s around. Today Ghift has lost his fifth sword match in a row.

Folth has gotten good enough he never whacks his fingers anymore. He beats him down on pure skill and endurance, both of which he seems to have an abundance more of than Ghift does, no matter how he tries to keep up.

“You could let me win sometimes,” he grumbles. His legs are so weak they won’t bring him up to bear. He falls the rest of the way on his butt instead.

“You’d never learn anything.” In the past years Folth hasn’t changed either. Still physically robust, and not even stupid to make it fair. “And if I took it easy on you, you’d just get mad at me for that.” His smile is still beautiful too. When he pulls it on other people they can’t help but to smile back. Sometimes it’s like having another Erst around.

Ghift scoffs, unable to really deny it, and looks down at his poor toy sword, battered by all their play sessions. “Still… I haven’t won even once! Are you sure you aren’t cheating?”

“How could I do that?”

“I dunno. I’m asking you.”

Folth sits by him for a moment of friendly heavily breathing silence. Side by side he can feel his body heat evaporating off of him. His eyes start to sting. He distracts himself from it by picking old leaf bits off his shoes.

Folth’s gaze turns to him. He can always feel it when he stares at him. “Do you want to become a Summoner too?”

Erst left last year after high school to study specifically to be a Summoner, instead of general education. Ghift doesn’t know what the curriculum is like—or care, really—but he assumes it’s going to be rough going for him to be done any time soon like he wants. No matter how hard it is, if anyone can do it, it’s Erst… and ever since he’s been sending reports back in the mail that he reads with mixed feelings pride and envy. “No. I think I’d rather do my own thing...”

The evening before Erst left, they fought again, the worst they ever have. He tried to remind his brother of their duty to their family. ...Erst has sent his reports, but no personal letters.

On the morning of, Folth came early especial to see him off too; an amazing feat for him. The variance in temperature between Erst saying goodbye to Ghift, then to Folth, was palpable. For a week after he’d remember Erst smiling at Folth and ruffling his hair, and Folth meekly gazing up at him from below his lashes with his face all pink, and hated them both.

“I want to be one.”

This ‘revelation’ doesn’t surprise him; it’s been long in coming, he feels. “A Summoner for the Eucross?”

“Yeah! I was just thinking, it’d be great if all three of us could do it! Then we’d work together all the time, helping people! Doesn’t that sound cool?”

Yeah, like torture. He can see their dynamic unchanging even years and years from now. And always being behind. “I want to succeed my own way… and make my family proud. Once I’ve done that…”

Once he’s stronger than the both of them, once they have no choice but to admit it, once he has secured his place in their circle---

He turns to Folth and takes his hand, deliberately feeling it, the skin somehow baby-soft even after all these play sessions. “I want to have another sword fight. When we’re all grown up, you and me. And whoever wins gets to ask for anything they want.”

Folth tilts his head a little. “Anything?” he asks, smiling.

“Just one! You will, right?”

“Hmmm… okay.”

“I knew you’d agree. Then it’s a promise between men!”

They hold hands for a while longer, as the weather cools and the sky darkens. The only thing that makes him think of heading back is knowing Folth’s parents will worry. And they’ve been kind to him. Otherwise he’d be happy to stay out here all night to watch the stars come out. He knows his parents won’t miss him.

Folth leans into him until his head fills perfectly the crook of his neck. Ghift tries not to squeeze down on his hand. Just relax. He covets all of him so much, though. His brother has such nerve to not only run away from their family, but to steal his only friend away too. If Folth could become and live as an ordinary man, part of him would like that. But he knows he loves them both for their shining excellence.

If he surpasses them, they will love him the same way.

“It’s getting late,” he offers eventually. Cold, too, but he hardly feels it with them so close.

“Mhm. I really want to see the stars, though.”

“We can do that at your house, dummy.”

“In the garden?”

“I was thinking your window, but… that sounds nice.” Like a little camp out. “If you don’t get cold.”

“Don’t worry, Ghift.” Folth leaves his shoulder, but he’s still so close he can see each individual eyelash, and the rising moon glimmering in his eyes. “I’ll keep you warm!”

He kisses his cheek, just a quick friendly peck, but his word is true. Ghift’s body turns so hot he immediately begins to sweat.


	12. fernweh

Ghift makes himself at home on his brother’s bed with a book from the library. All the history they’ve learned at school has been about humans and Summon Beasts making friends, all the worlds coming together, and blah blah blah. He could talk to his mom and dad for a lecture, he’s sure, but he’s interested in what others have to say.

It’s a book on general history, so what he’s looking for makes up a very small part. Their town is too backwards to have a whole text on an organization from so long ago.

The Colorless Faction… described as radicals (‘terrorists’ had been the word his dear brother used during their fight) seeking the reforming of the world into one ruled by Summoners, founded long ago by Zenobis. A notable member was Odreik, who married into the powerful Servolt family and attempted to summon the Demon Lord of Sapureth into Lyndbaum… the Faction was ultimately later disbanded by Gian Crastof, following a short period as its head.

He taps over this last name thoughtfully. Gian Crastof… in a way, Ghift feels a lot of gratitude toward this man. It’s only because of his actions that the Brattern family needed to be formed, after all.

That’s all there is. Just some brief highlights. Well, like Erst said once… it was a long time ago. Most people probably have no idea now that this group ever existed, and if they do, it would be big stuff like this. Generation after generation… he lays in the bed, book held tightly to his chest. A wave of romanticism passes through him. All these generations and years to breed out a a worthy successor. It would have been his brother. No doubt he’d be suited for it.

But now it’s all up to him to restore their family glory and the old, stronger Summon Arts that fell from use when Summoners started treating Summon Beasts as comrades instead of what they really are. It’s a little frightening. But it gives him a sense of pride to know he is being counted on; not for his parents so much, but the idea of that group of Summoners from over hundreds of years ago who bonded their blood together, trusting in the future… that is the trust he has inherited. His brother must feel something like this when he talks about what it means to be a Eucross Summoner.

Ghift has to succeed. So he can be on par (and then above) Folth and Erst in their backward choices, and to rebuild the Colorless Faction. Marriage and sex are hazy concepts to him still, but the thought of needing a wife is an unpleasant one. He’s the only one necessary to restoring them to their former glory. After his death, he supposes another family could take over. Once his brother acknowledges what they both are, they are the only Bratterns the world needs.

He keeps the book for as long as its lend period lasts, under the bed with Erst’s new grade reports and assignments (where he assumes he wants them still). There’s so much intrigue and love in that single section.


	13. tampo

Erst comes home shortly after his graduation.

Ghift and Folth wait for him in neutral ground at the park. He wants to see him by himself first, without their parents’ disapproval hovering in the background, or any more fawning than necessary from Folth’s side. Erst won’t know to come here first but he’ll go home and figure it out from the note he left. Frankly, he deserves a little inconvenience after what he’s put him through.

It is late in the evening when they finally see him, coming down the road. Even just his silhouette under the lamplight makes Ghift’s heart swell. His big brother looks like a proper adult now. He’s probably as tall as dad, and his shoulders have grown out a bit too.

His face has gotten something other than older, though. Maybe it is the face if someone who has been outside of the hometown he’s been in his whole life, who has seen and learned many things. But his hair still curls the same way even though it’s been grown out, and his eyes still squeeze the same way when he smiles. “I’m tired,” he says, pleasantly whiny-sounding. “What are you boys doing making me come out here?”

Ghift licks his bottom lip, wondering what to say. Congratulations? He’s proud of his brother, always, even though this achievement strikes him as bittersweet. Does he even want him to congratulate him?

“Erst Congratulations!”

Folth runs to him first and throws his arms as far as they’ll go around his middle. “Are you a Summoner now?”

“Haha, not yet. I have to make a Cross first…” He peers down at him. “You’ve gotten even cuter than before, Folth! Have you gotten bigger, too?”

“Ehehe, not as big as you yet! It must be so much fun in Savorle.”

When you look at them like this...

“You have to see it before you attend school! Maybe someday I can take you up with me during vacation. The first time you see the Nagimiya City Ruins on the horizon...”

...doesn’t it kind of seem like _they’re_ brothers?

He breathes in and forces out a ‘hi!’

Erst looks in his direction. His eyes seem to glide over him before—reluctantly—focusing. “Ghift. How’s things?”

He’s not sure what to say to that. If he says ‘fine’ will it sound like he hasn’t missed him? He doesn’t want to sound like a baby, though… even though he wants nothing more than to cling to him too. “Better if you’d come back.”

Erst rolls his eyes a little before turning back to Folth. “Have you had dinner yet?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, I’m starving. I think I’ll check in at a restaurant, if you’d both like to join me for an after-dinner snack.”

Over an after-dinner snack (a whole apple pie shared between them) Erst tells them about the spooky ruins no is allowed to go into without special permissions, and the Summon Rail system that connects the whole city—a city ripe not only with human life, but Summon Beasts as well (‘Otherworlders’, Erst says delicately), and the colonies they’ve formed nearby, and the beauty of the Crystal Forest. His coursework was tough, but rewarding. Living with people striving for the same goal filled him with a sense of community with these other students; all he can hope for now is to form a Life Resonance bond.

Ghift listens intently. He does not want to be a Summoner, but he wishes he could experience the same things his brother has. Like trying to understand his homework, he wants to appreciate to the fullest extent his tribulations and triumphs, and to keep the same sensations inside his own breast. Folth’s expression turns gradually from its initial excitement into one of intense longing, and Ghift knows he sees his future in what is being spoken to them.

The two of them, Erst and Folth, reach a back and forth loop from which Ghift is not entirely excluded by some quick look or side-word, but which is nonetheless primarily meant for them. It is each other they look to. And they bloom like flowers under the other’s attention, taking in each glance and smile like the sun.

Ghift pretends to spill his water by accident, and is relieved when Erst looks at him, really looks at him, to scold him for being careless.

On their way home without Folth he remarks, “You’re going to get a fat head if you keep showing off like that.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Erst replies coldly, but he can see by how his shoulders hunch that he does.

He wonders if Erst would like a little brother like Folth more; one who can praise him all the time, and is always cheerful. It’s not like he doesn’t feel the same things Folth can so boldly say out loud. But a life of being exposed to his brother’s mercurial moods makes it hard to speak that way to what his often a cold, or angry face… and, more simply put, it is not in his nature to be that honest.

“How’s home?”

“The usual.” Quiet mornings. Quiet weekends. Quiet dinners. He’s not sure if his parents have actually gotten quieter since Erst left or if it only seems that way. They’ve always spoken to him more than his brother, but without someone around who speaks to him all the time (whether he wants to or not) their lack stands out all the more. “You didn’t come home during your break last year.”

“I needed to stay there to study. Sorry,” he says, not sounding sorry at all.


	14. デレデレ

Erst passes a tense week at home with him. His cooking has gotten better.

“Don’t they have cafeterias?” Ghift asks on a mouthful of peppered scrambled egg, instead of saying what he really thinks. If he said that, maybe Erst would take it to mean his cooking before was bad (which it wasn’t, not that he is or was much of a judge).

“I can’t let other people feed me forever, you know.” Is there a sharpness to his reply, or is he imagining it? ...he never _made_ him cook for him. Their parents can be forgetful with them, but they never starved him, and he doubts they starved Erst.

But telling him to lay off will only provoke a fight. And Erst is rarely apologetic when that happens.

They spend each day out with Folth and each time the pattern he noticed before repeats. Folth praises Erst. Erst beams, and then praises him back, or tells him some story he knows will interest him. Folth is pleased. Repeat ad nauseum. Any attempt to interject himself only brings him a moment of attention.

Being a nuisance is easier. He speaks ruder than he usually does, steps on the heel of Folth’s shoes until they pop off, and tugs hard on Erst’s clothing when he wants to say something. Being scolded makes him sad inside, but Erst has to pay attention to him to do it.

They see Erst off again at the end of the week. He strokes Ghift’s hair back from his forehead and tells him to be good. Affection from him now is such a rare treat he is wholly content, even when Erst does the same to Folth and has him promise to look after his ‘trouble-making little brother’ for him. It’s embarrassing to be treated like he needs his best friend as a baby-sitter, but he is in Erst’s thoughts for a moment, something for him to think about and take care of, and cannot bring himself to sulk.

In one sense, his being gone changes nothing.

A spark has been lit in Folth on seeing someone (or just Erst?) so close to his own aspiration. Left to his own to choose a topic of conversation he gravitates toward Ghift’s big brother, and how amazing he is, and what Savorle must be like, and how kind and cool and sweet---

Ghift does not mind indulging in this from time to time. He likes talking about his brother too, and when he can show off Erst’s reports and graded papers, and tell childhood stories, he knows that this is something only he can provide. His perfect, amazing brother makes him feel amazing too, by connection. When Folth looks at him with awe and says how _lucky_ he is to have a brother like Erst, he says yes, he is.

One night he stays at Folth’s house with him, and is given cause to wonder if there might be more to his admiration.

“Do you think Erst has a girlfriend?” Folth whispers, in an uncharacteristically shy tone of voice. Somehow, Ghift thinks, it’s a rude thing to ask someone when your legs are skin to skin, carelessly entwined sometimes at the ankles. But he thinks about it.

“Probably not.” Maybe one for show, but no one serious. No one is going to stay with someone long-term who keeps their background and parents a secret. Erst would be too ashamed to be open about it. And if it spread around, if someone ranked high enough heard about it, it could jeopardize his potential employment. “If he did, he’d have mentioned her. Why?”

“I dunno. No reason.”

Fourth-grade courtship is limited to bouquets of dandelions, sharing lunches, saving seats, doing projects together, ‘going steady’. Ghift has never been the recipient of attentions like these, but he’s seen up close more than a few girls try it on Folth. They talked to him with their eyes downcast, twirling hair in their fingers; with voices like Folth’s now, low and hesitantly hopeful.

He hated seeing their attempts at stealing his friend away, and he kind of hates this too, though he knows there’s no danger of anything. Erst is way too old for Folth. He’ll be middle-aged by the time he’s an adult. Still. Erst likes Folth a lot too. And it wouldn’t technically be illegal.

If Folth _does_ like-like Erst… and if Erst like-likes him back...

Something in Folth’s thoughts gets him so flustered he squirms, jolting one of his knees into Ghift’s. He knees back. They playfully mock-argue through the rest of the ten minutes it takes for them to start drifting off to sleep, with ‘keep on your side’ and ‘it’s my bed so it’s all my side’.

He dreams during the night of Erst, his fingers in his hair, and a kiss on his cheek that he did not give but now Ghift wishes he had. His mouth is soft, and lingers on his skin for more than a peck. Folth had kissed him like that; the remembrance conjures up the memory but it becomes instead a kiss on the mouth, as children and friends do, that does not stop.

There is an awareness in him that this is a dream but whatever he turns his attention to stands out clear and nearly real for as long as it has it. Folth’s hand on his thigh. The other gripping his wrist. The press of their noses which are too small and unformed still to get in the way. Their lips. Pressing, pressing, without need for breath. A wavery sense of pressure builds in him the longer he concentrates on it, until it feels like he might burst. It might be nice to burst, though; instead of dying, it seems like he might come to life instead.

He jerks suddenly awake, staring up at the ceiling as the near-culmination of something in his body hovers tantalizingly close over his skin. It recedes rapidly once he registers being awake, but some reminder of it is still left with him. His fingers quiver when he pulls his blankets tighter for heat on his overly-warm skin that is still cold deep in inside. The quilt weighs a thousand pounds. The dream is turning to mist already but he recalls the two big points. Erst kissing his cheek. He and Folth kissing, mouth to mouth, like friends, but it didn’t feel friendly. He’s never had a kiss that made him feel like that.

Maybe he likes Folth? He struggles to turn so he can see his bedmate’s face better in the blue early, early morning light. Erst calls this face ‘cute’ all the time. He guesses that it is, although Folth’s appearance has never occurred to him like that. He’s just… Folth, his best (and only) friend. And if he does like him… what does his brother’s appearance in the same dream mean?

He’s even less sure what to feel about that.

Anyway. There’s nothing saying the dream has to mean anything at all. It’s just his brain making stories (never mind why it would make stories like this one). A teensy shred of his mind is curious though, if he kissed Folth, whether that building in his body would start again.

Folth is a heavy sleeper but he doesn’t try. Maybe he’s afraid to find out, one way or the other.


	15. pomme

No concrete answer comes to him for his feelings. What separates romantic love from friendship? After a few days he tries to stop actively thinking about it. Even if he does like-like Folth, he’s not sure anything could come of it, and thus, any point. Would Folth be willing to join his family? Maybe once they’ve grown-up, he can make him when he wins their final re-match.

And as for Erst… Ghift has some idea of the taboo of incest, even though he doesn’t know the word itself. Family isn’t supposed to like family that way. He doubts he does (the few physical tremors he has had in association with his brother, he ignores conveniently); the warmest that he feels is admiration of his brother’s perfection; that’s all. Though even if he did feel something else, it might be understandable. The blood of Brattern is so far above anyone else who isn’t also exceptional, like Folth… who else would be best-suited to him but his own?

Hypothetically speaking.

Two weeks after his brother has come and gone he goes into his room to dust off the counters and desk. It looks like he took some more books with him when he left this time. Erst’s room was never busy, but after he left it for Savorle, there’s been little in here but the furniture left. Adults are supposed to move out of the house anyway, but it doesn’t seem fair that he started the process before he was really one.

Did Erst notice his room had been kept for him? Probably not. You don’t think about dust until there’s a lot of it. It doesn’t take more than a few minutes to finish. And then… it’s not like he was looking for an excuse to do this! He’s a big boy, after all. But Erst was finally here after so long and his blankets haven’t been washed since.

Ghift slips in under the comforter and nuzzles his cheek into the pillow. His brother’s scent is faint after only a week to grow it in. It’s changed a little since the last time he’s been here; something almost sweet, like apples. Has he gotten a different hair wash at Savorle? A soap? He hadn’t noticed a smell strong enough to suspect perfume. But they’d spent little time during his visit in very close proximity.

The day before he found a letter in their mailbox, addressed to him and Folth. It only took these past weeks of concentrated searching for him to make a Cross from someone he had already known a while, and become a full-fledged Summoner. Figures. He went immediately to Folth’s to show it off, and to ask exactly what a Cross entailed, anyway.

“They’re best friends!” Folth exclaimed, barely looking up from his letter of congratulations. “A Summoner and an Otherworlder make a bond so strong they can sense each other’s emotions and thoughts.”

“Is that so.” He didn’t like the idea of some stranger being so close to Erst. Even he, his own flesh and blood, couldn’t do those things.

The letter was put into its envelope (which Folth kissed quickly when he thought neither his mother nor Ghift were looking) and sent off with his own perfunctory note.

Maybe it’s part of what’s affected him. He needs this moment, to himself, with some remnant of his brother. To try not to feel too heartsick about this ‘bond’.

Hours pass in a drowse. A sweet feeling of languor fills his body and his thoughts turn hazy. The imagined feel of his brother stroking his hair, his cheek, in the same way he always sees him touching Folth, seems a real thing. Gently, with love. Irritation grows again between his legs. He vaguely remembers in the midst of his reverie when it had felt like that before; but instead of relieving himself by pressing against the bed, he reaches down with his hand instead.

Realizing that his penis is sticking out makes him pause for a moment. He asked Erst once why it stood out and made it hard to pee sometimes. Erst averted his eyes and said that it was a normal thing to happen, without really explaining anything. Other than being an annoyance it hasn’t concerned him.

He rubs himself against his palm. The sensation grows stronger, like it should be bad, but instead turns into a sweetness that reverberates throughout his pelvis. When he is older and drinks for the first time he will compare the pleasant itch and heat of intoxication to what he is experiencing this moment. Rubbing it and head full of his brother’s touch, his scalp, his hair, his cheek, his hands washing his back, fingers on his spine—the warmer he grows the more fervent his thoughts become, here, there, here, there, until he is drunk on the thought of Erst.

If he touched him here… where he has been told at school no one should… if Erst wanted to touch him here, would he let him? He can’t begin to think about it seriously at the moment. The only word in his head is _yes_. As he tries to touch himself as Erst might, his hand takes on a more natural masturbatory position with his fingers around his cocktail weenie-sized shaft. Erst’s mouth, probably cavernous compared to Folth’s, tongue stronger as it soothes away some burn or sore. Erst’s fingers in his mouth, so big he gasps for breath around them until he’s drooling.

Ghift breathes out in a long, quivery sigh as the second orgasm of his young life overcomes him. All thought and imagery quits his mind at the height of it; all he can do is experience. His belly and thighs ache afterward from trembling.

He rolls onto his side and for a moment is ashamed. Something happened in all that that is definitely not how he should be about his brother. Like, all of it, maybe. But, his brother… he loves his brother so much. And who will ever love him as much as he does? Or could? Not even Folth knows the whole truth about them.

Has Folth done this too, thinking about Erst? Thinking of Folth touching himself (even to his brother) stirs him, along with a tinge of jealousy. Trying to fondle himself again hurts, but his penis is back down again. He tries to remember what he has seen of nudity in them. It’s been a while for both cases. And he’s been so uninterested at the time he hadn’t really looked. They were boys, just like him, with boy’s bodies. But Erst has become a full-grown adult since they last bathed together. Taller, bigger. He tries to imagine how that might translate.

He can’t stand to return to his own room for the night, or even to get up to brush his teeth and change. He takes in what little of his brother remains to him and pulls the comforter tighter around himself. The thoughts of Erst’s touch returns, more lulling than arousing in his worn-out state. Sometimes they slept together when he was very, very small. The urge to recall every brush of skin is so strong it chokes in his throat like a stone.


	16. playdate

Ghift spends the next day with Folth, morning to evening. During their games of play-fighting and tag, thoughts of last night reoccur to him. They’re distracting but it’s hard to make them go away. Does Folth do all that too? Does he know about it? What would he do it to? Ghift did it again when he woke up while contemplating Folth’s smile and the sweet way he looks at him, and found it works just as well for him.

Is this what he overheard Erst doing?

He doesn’t know exactly what he’s been doing, but he figures it isn’t friendly. It’s just so… intense, for friendship, and it isn’t something he’s heard about or seen, like hugs and cheek kisses. Love, then. But thinking of himself as being ‘in love’ with either Folth or his brother is a strange idea. If he is then it’s even more important that he find a way to distinguish himself from them—how else can he stand with them? If only he were older and surer.

They come back in after hours outdoors then bathe one by one. It’s been too long since they last washed each other for him to suggest it, and he’s feeling a little awkward about the possibility of seeing him naked again. He thinks he might give himself away with too much staring.

They sit down for quiet activity in Folth’s bedroom to settle down until bedtime. Reading, some introspective block-building, checkers, and the like. Ghift settles down with a book himself (well-worn and obviously well-loved, a tale of a hero from Silturn) and eyes Folth around the pages. Freshly-washed and scrubbed pink, hair damp and sticking to his skin. Very… ugh. Cute.

“Do you wanna play something?”

Folth looks at him with big, trusting eyes. “Like what?”

He places the book on the bedside table. “Come here.”

Folth does not stand up to do so, or even walk on his knees. He comes over like a puppy he’d called, then sits (heels?) at his feet. “What d’ya want to do?”

There’s so much of him his fingers are itching to just… touch. “I’m not tired yet. Let’s wrestle.”

“Well… I don’t mind, but we can’t play too hard or mom’ll come in.”

They face each other on the bed, butts hovering over their heels in the tense moments before collision that resembles a couple of praying mantises facing off. Then Folth tackles and pins him easily to the quilt in the span of a second. His chin tucks against Ghift’s neck to make prying off harder. They’re so close Ghift can smell his body heat as well as he can feel it, a hot soft wave, mixed with milky soap. That he has been so easily subdued is thrilling and annoying.

Subdued but not conquered, he hopes. He spreads and kicks with his legs, pushes with his forearms into Folth’s chest between pushing on his shoulder, until they are both giggling with the adrenaline coursing through their trembling muscles. His fingers spread out as his touch becomes more discerning. Folth’s arms are getting skinnier. There’s a boniness to his shoulders, and where they join to the collarbone. His breath puffs against the place his adam’s apple will one day develop.

Every ten seconds or so Ghift puts in another frantic burst of movement into attempting to free himself. With each failure he feels a reemergence of emotion. Annoyance, at being trapped and weaker than his same-age playmate. The thrill is a mysterious thing, of a mysterious origin. In the meantime he gets his thrill of skin. Even with his feet, he skims with his toes, over calf and thigh. Their abdomens are smushed tight together. He tries to suss out the impression of one but doesn’t think he can feel Folth’s penis against him. Underwear and nightshirts as good as barriers.

Once he’s exhausted he joins his arms around Folth’s neck and kisses his cheek with a hard ‘pop’.

“Ghift…” In the normal order of things he’d tease him for being affectionate, or play it off with a smile. Instead he has an expression Ghift doesn’t recognize from anyone at all; bottom lip softly bitten, eyes half-closed, pupils both intent and vague. For a moment it doesn’t register when this strange Folth kisses his cheek back.

When it does, he kisses him again.

They keep tightly pressed together, nose next to nose, kissing each other on the cheek with deliberate tenderness. There is no moving away, or parting. He keeps his lips continually to Folth’s skin as they move, just as he feels Folth’s lips on his skin. Neither dare to come any closer to the mouth than outside the corner of it. He’s not sure what his hands are doing or even where they are—his entire body outside his face is numb—but one of them—maybe both—allows their body to follow the tense-release motion of the kissing. Their hips rock together in languid little thrusts.

He can feel him now, against the tense area between his own legs. Rubbing together.

“Stop,” he whispers. “I give up.”

“Y-yeah? No take-backs!” Folth yanks right off him, wiping at his reddened mouth and the spot of drool on his cheek. His nightshirt is loose enough Ghift can’t see what he felt. On himself is a small protuberance that could easily be mistaken for a fold of clothing. “It’s time for bed anyway. I don’t feel good...”

They settle in with awkward small talk for tomorrow’s plans. His body aches all over. He contemplates using the toilet so he can finish what’s begun, but doesn’t dare. If Folth is aware of even a little of what just happened, it’ll be way too obvious.

The sides of the bed are rigidly set. Their legs do not mingle as they usually do. He wants to ask; do you know? And if he knew for sure he didn’t, how nice it would be to know something for once that Folth doesn’t, and to… teach him. They’d already had a chance but he’d gotten, well, scared, or just nervous. It makes him a little disappointed in himself.

He won’t distinguish himself at this rate.


	17. hope encapsulated in blood

The rest of the year passes in regularity. Even Ghift’s private activities become a normal part of his life. He eventually comes to the decision that Folth is innocent still of this kind of touching. Surely he’d say something? Hint at it? Then again, he has been circumspect about what Ghift is sure by now is a crush on his older brother, so maybe he _wouldn’t_ say anything.

The distance between them has lengthened just a little. The invisible line remains between them in bed. Folth does not clasp his hand or impulsively hug him as he did. It makes him sad. Maybe they’re just growing up and growing beyond childishness, but he thinks it’s because Folth was so spooked by what happened between he’s edging away, and he hadn’t even considered the possibility of that happening.

Folth, spooked?

One day he comes home and hears someone besides his parents talking in the living room. Then he hears his mother, the stranger, dad, all in low hushed voices. He can’t imagine who it could be. Not even Folth comes inside ever. And mom and dad only go out when they need to and are just as cold as usual. They haven’t made friends with anyone. 

They’re too quiet for him to hear what they’re discussing, and since he’s the only other person in this house, he assumes that means he isn’t meant to. It strikes him that he should be curious. But his parent’s lives are so detached from his own that the only thing he takes from this is that the stranger isn’t an intruder.

There are other things he has to think about. What is Erst doing with this Cross of his? What does he think about when he touches himself? Ghift has not had proper sex education yet but his peer group is getting old enough that they giggle about ‘doing it’ with backwoods curiousity, and who’s tried, who’s seen who naked or walked in on them, along with other oddities of the human body he can scarcely believe. It’s something Erst has done; probably still does. Sometimes it’s a thought he luxuriates in. His brother has a body, that he touches. A body that... maybe, one day...

The thought never quite finishes, though he knows where it leads.

Life continues outside of home. Good grades but nothing he can be proud of yet. Classes are easy. His times and reps for physical education are improving bit by bit but Folth still wins all their games together.

Inside the house, things have gotten even quieter. He hadn’t known that was possible, but they don’t leave the basement anymore to cook but once every few days. Otherwise they go straight to bed in the early hours of morning. He can only suppose they want him to be more independant. He’s old enough to make cereal and heat stuff up.

Erst still sends letters. More personal ones now, though they still have the feel of letter grades and reports, over settled disputes and conflicts and his first experience in real battle, where one fearful look from someone he was protecting was all it took to stop his hands from shaking. People depend on him, he says. He does a lot of good.

Ghift brings these too to Folth, and they discuss how gallant Erst must look in battle. They can only imagine what a Summoner is like to begin with, and one like him?

“I’d never be scared of anything.” Folth goes over the letters lately line by line, like he can’t get enough of reading Erst’s handwriting even when he’s practically memorized the whole thing. “Not with Erst to protect me.”

“Never?” He’s been afraid of things with his brother around, but thinking of Erst actually set out to protect him from something is a comforting thought. Still, he’s sure Folth’s being idealistic. Even if someone you like is protecting you, you have to be a little scared that something might go wrong. That they might get hurt. He doesn’t think it’s possible to just believe in someone that whole-heartedly.

“Of course! Don’t you trust Erst, too?”

“It’s not a question of whether I trust him or not...”

If he and Folth ever got into trouble together would he so blindly trust him to save him? Even when they’re older, and not just dumb kids?

He doubts it. He really does.

He’s not sure yet what he can do to compete with their aspirations, either. Quite frankly, there are few jobs that compete with the prestige of being a Summoner, even in the same realm of risking one’s life. The ones that might are probably top-level government jobs which have no appeal. Unlike his brother, he’s not willing to pretend he isn’t what he is.

There’s not long to wait before he has his answer.

He comes home from his last day of school for the year, and is surprised to see his mother sitting in the living room as he puts his school things up in the closet to hang for a few months. They don’t speak to each other. It doesn’t occur to him that she’s waiting for him, and even if he did think so, he couldn’t possibly imagine what for. So he intends to ignore her.

“How old are you now?”

He jumps, rattling his head into the hangers. “Nine, mom.”

The closet door shuts. She stares at him like she’s waiting for him to explain something. She isn’t dismissing him. He can’t stare back. So he uncomfortably stares at the floor, in between quick glances of acknowledgement that, yes, you’re there, I’m here... what do you want?

She jerks suddenly, like out of a daydream. “I have something to show you.”

He follows her, hesitating at the steps to the basement. He’s rarely been down there. His parents don’t like him to be in the way and Erst has discouraged him from expressing any attention to it at all. But his mother is talking, more than he thinks he has ever heard her at once.

“In our forced disbandment our histories and treasures were given away, our weapons destroyed. The remaining members scattered with what little they were able to hold onto. Much of it of insignificant value. But an amazing rediscovery has been made by one of our allies.”

Ghift silently thinks his own thoughts as they are swallowed into the stone throat of the stairs. Cold bites into his soles but it is a distant sensation. Allies. Perhaps that means other, lesser families. The difficulty of marriage for a family like theirs had never entered his mind before now. It would make sense if they essentially inter-married amongst each other, the Bratterns having their pick from whoever in another household showed the greatest potential. Easier than finding a stranger who held their beliefs and ideas.

“There is a force beyond... a force that permeates this world. It is made of every living being that has ever existed.”

The landing spreads out into a large room, and shelvings upon shelvings of books. Ghift has been in the cellar at Folth’s house, and the school’s basement for bad weather drills, seen them in books of horror and fantasy, and absorbed by cultural osmosis what any underground space is supposed to look like. Cold, cobwebby, and creepy. Even at the school it had an air of dishevelment and disuse.

It’s cold down here but the corners are clear, and no dust he can see lines the bookcases. It doesn’t smell damp or like dead earth. There’s a warmth to the scent in the air here most of the rooms of their house lack; the passive scent of body heat and pheromones, remnants of soap and sweat and perfume and shampoo.

A book lies open on one of the desks, in what seems to be a place of honor. Two chairs are sat before it, and an array of of instruments surround it.

“The older ways of Summoning have been discarded in favor of that... Life Resonance Summoning. But this tome contains knowledge of this force that surpasses even the old ways. It is the hope of your father and I to revive it to retake our place in the world.”

Her fingers brush his shoulder in the closest he has ever felt to a caress from her. “Your brother is lost to us,” she says with faint disappointment, as though speaking of a relative one had fond memories of many, many years ago who has died in some far away place, “but with you, we’ll have a solid foundation on which to restore the glory of the Colorless Faction. Nether Summoning is the key to this future.”

A Summoner still. But a different kind of Summoner. It must be fate, tied-up with his blood.

“Yes.” For a moment he thinks of Erst and how he would react to this, what he’d say. But if he grows strong enough he can make him see. He can make him understand. And he’ll be able to make them both see him. With a kind of helpless hunger he eyes the book and wonders how it would feel in his hands, what noises the paper would make rustling together, the weight on his skin of centuries of hidden artes, waiting for the right one to bring it back forth. He’s sure he won’t actually be trained to learn it for some time while he’s still growing, but he knows he can be good at it, even better than his parents.

It’s what he was made for.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i didn't set out writing this chapter intending to imply inbreeding but there it is and i'm not taking it back


	18. heir of the heritage

The new school year passes with infuriating slowness. His parents will only let him watch sometimes as they attempt small tests, steps in the larger process, but mostly they read and read then research and read some more. It’s gotten to the point where even when they don’t care if he hangs around he’d rather go out and play.

He’s eager to start catching up. To be better. But they won’t even let him look at it yet.

It seems to him that by the time they’ll finally think he’s ready, Erst will have established a legacy that will stifle him just to look on it. He may still be able to surpass Folth, but his brother will remain out of his reach in some way even if he changes the whole world from top to bottom. 

So when it happens, he’s not particularly upset. He only feels bad that he _should_ feel bad. If the same thing happened to Folth, he’d be bawling his eyes out.

When it happens he is sitting some ways away, on the stairs and watching. Today is supposed to be the real thing, so he’s a little bitter about it. They’ve been down here all day again to work on it, some kind of huge circle so pitch-perfect they even use rulers and protractors to work by. The atmosphere is electric. The longer he stares at the lines the more they seem to pulse. All morning. All evening. It becomes a space separate from the first floor and beyond, a place where thoughts of food or rest or needing the bathroom don’t occur.

Finally, they say, eyes glittering and eager, full of thoughts already of the future, victories and glory won. Full of greed. Full of hope. Their chant sounds like a prayer.

It happens very quickly.

The circle glows, filling the area inside and close to it in a light both dark and blinding. Something appears... he barely sees it under his palm, pulsing, stinking like something that’s been laying under a rock in the mud.

Then it’s gone. And so are his parents.

He goes over slowly in case it happens again, but the lines are discolored now, and scratched-out. Nothing stops him from picking up the book and holding it in his arms, against his chest.

Well, he thinks after a moment of waiting to see whether he’ll cry even for just a few tears, it’s for the best. Obviously they weren’t strong enough to control... whatever they summoned. But he is. He is the one meant to fulfill the ancient trust that fills his bloodline. Down in his heart of hearts, that he does not think he could give over to trust even Erst, he knows it.

He wanders up the stairs and out onto the porch, wondering if he shouldn’t ask to stay the night at Folth’s. Knowing that he’ll be alone in the mansion and not simply left alone is a relief, but his orphanhood hangs over him with a heaviness that has nothing to do with grief. His fate. Fate. All well and good. But he’s still a child, ten years old. He knows nothing about paying bills or buying food, and money... he’s not sure where they keep it, or even how his parents have any. They don’t work that he knows of. 

His smallness outweighs the power he holds in his arms.

While he decides one way or the other, he keeps the book tightly pinned to himself with one arm, and searches through the mailbox with the other. If anything is immediately due he’ll figure something out until he knows for sure what he’ll do. Can’t live with Folth probably, all considering...

There’s a letter from Erst. It must have been sitting out here all day while he was downstairs.

He stares out a little longer, at the gate that covered his view of the rest of the town, once so big, then small, now big again, and heads inside.

In Erst’s room is where all Erst’s stuff goes, though Erst has shown no sign he thinks of this room that way anymore. Ghift does, though. He remembers their childhood together even if he would prefer to forget. Here is where he remembers him best when the months are unbearably long.

The letter says Erst is on break for the next week, and will be coming to visit.

If he has to spend another awkward week stuck between him and Folth... their parents disappearing off the face of the world might keep his attention for a while, but that’d just be pity, something too far below the admiration and love he wants from them. The first night he gets here, before anything about their parents can even come up... maybe he’ll find a way to show what he’s capable of.

He can save Folth for another time. There is much to be done.


	19. erosion

It had been an accident but he likes the sight of his brother like this. Almost against his will he likes it. That stupid little Mudmire he ended up summoning had this much effect. Erst faces him now, chest heaving and sweat glimmering on his brow, with his sleeve all ripped open. Something he summoned was strong enough to hurt his brother! There’s a strange gladness to that.

He might expect some query as to how he has done what he has done, but the first thing out of Erst’s mouth is, “Where is Folth?”

“How would I know. Don’t you ever stop thinking about him?” It’s honestly rude. He spent so long in just one week, all those late nights, and did something even two adults together couldn’t do with a year’s preparation. “Are you still not going to acknowledge me?”

“Acknowledge... what?” But Erst grips his arm, right above where it’s bleeding thick and slow still, and comprehension dawns in his eyes. “Earlier, you said... Ghift, what exactly did you _do_?”

So he tells him. The stranger and the book he came with, their parents’ disappearance shortly before his arrival. Erst emotes very little when he hears this, and what he does show Ghift thinks is more for what they were trying to do than for them.

“...I was out here all day, you know, tearing up roots for room.” There’s still mud under his fingernails. “I thought... if I can do something that only I can do---”

Erst’s face hardens. “For what?”

So I have something that’s mine. So you can be proud of me. But the quiet anger he sees that has been so often directed at him is mixed with something he has only used when speaking of their family. Contempt. Ghift’s heart falls hard in his chest. It’s only because he doesn’t understand. “It’s all for our bloodline.” You, too, if you’ll come back. “I’ll place the Brattern family where it was always meant to be.”

“Our name should have died long ago.” His fingers massage around his wound in an absently self-comforting way at odds with his eyes. It’s hard to see very closely in the dark. Just the blood, red and almost black. Now and again the cloth parts to show more of the flesh inside where something else shines. “This Nether thing. You’re not just a child anymore; you can see the damage it’s already caused. You can’t go through with this.”

He can hear it in his voice how little he thinks of him. Their heritage. Same thing, at this point.

Was it ever possible to win his love?

“My mind’s made up.” Their voices, their breathing, are the only things he can hear. The air is still. No leaves rustle, or branches creak. No crickets or birds hooting. Erst’s breathing, growing more ragged. “And I’ll do it all on my own, if you want. But I’ll make you admit it eventually. Who you are, and... where you belong.”

“Ghift.” There’s a clear note of warning in his voice. Despite the state he’s in, Ghift takes a step back, just in case. He’s not sure if Erst can hold onto him with only one good arm, but if he can he has no way to defend himself yet. And the way he’s looking at him is like a mean dog eyeballing a cat strolling around right outside its fence. It’s a look that promises something far more serious than noogies and tickle fights. “Come here.”

“I don’t think so. If you’re so worried about Folth, you should get looking for him.”

He turns and runs back to town. Erst hollers his name after him, cut off by an exclamation of pain.

He’d done his best to prepare for ‘after’, looking through his parents’ mail and documents for anything he could use. The same allies his parents had would come in handy for him, too. A few letters were sent to the closest few, in his most grown-up script to remind them of their obligation. He thought there would be time enough for them to come here, but as things stand he’s going to have to meet them halfway.

The fear before at the thought of caring for himself does not return. He does not worry about Folth or Erst, either. They’ll meet again someday. He has no doubt.

There’s not much he takes with him. An old coat, a change of clothes, and of course, his tome. Nothing in the basement needs going, nothing that can’t be replaced. Nothing in Erst’s room except all the sweet memories he carries already in his head, of hours and nights on his bed. Ghift’s own room...

His toy sword. For their rematch.

This is going out to seek his fate.


	20. 恋病

The older he gets the more he knows himself and his feelings for what they are. By now he is fully aware of the taboo, which, as he feels, concerns only others less than the blood he carries. That’s something for _ordinary_ people to care about. Not that it didn’t take some steps over the years to realize that, yes, he loves his brother, romantically, and desires him, in a very carnal fashion, and that he feels the same way for his childhood friend. But at no point is he bothered or ashamed of himself.

The first time he truly realized how he felt he was about fifteen, a little wiser about human relations, and thus more imaginative. His schooling on all things has been kept up within the houses of those who took him in. He learned properly about sex, in the context of passing on his precious heritage should his own endeavors fail. Thinking of his brother stroking his hair did not satisfy him anymore.

His days here are long and full of study. In a very real sense it is like he never left home. The people he sees regularly are loyal to him and his aims, but they do not form a family as warm and loving as Folth’s, even with their own blood. It’s just as well. He doesn’t need or want these people for _that_.

At night he settles into a bed that does not seem his own even after a near decade, so he can leisurely think his thoughts of the ones he does have warmth for. Mood varies their perspective.

Sometimes he is a child again, innocent but still very much in love. His brother enters his room in the dead of night and makes merciless love to him. He kisses his toes, all the way up to the insides of his thighs as he pretends to still sleep, burning up inside. He has a vague idea that this shouldn’t be happening but the attention is too nice to give up. Slooowly the front of his nightshirt is lifted, so that the kisses continue up his ticklish belly, on his nipples, the dip between his collarbones. Erst must be able to hear his heart hammering away. He must know that he’s awake. But neither of them let on.

By the time he has finished, his entire body is sensitized and primed for more touch; he couldn’t say no if he wanted to (in real life, as he’s touching himself, it makes a wonderful warm-up since it can continue indefinitely until his arousal is heightened). Their bodies connect easily even though it’s _oh-so-big_ and in his excited state he begins to give himself away. A twitch here, a twitch there, a moan-like sigh. Sometimes he wakes up and pretends to feel shame at what he has enjoyed, but typically he remains ‘asleep’ the whole way through, until his insides are finally filled with semen.

This kind of Erst he supposes must be experienced, which is a bitter thing to consider. Even if Erst has had no actual lovers, he still might have experimented. And that chastest of romantic gestures, the kiss---it’s hard to think of his popular brother as kiss-less, as much as he desperately hopes it is the case.

Other times the fantasy is inverted. It is he who know what he wants, and his poor brother who must suffer.

Again in a child’s body (why? just because he was that age when he last saw him, he assumes, and accounting for his own being older means accounting for his brother being older, which he finds difficult to imagine) he tip-toes where he shouldn’t go, and he feels so bad, so naughty, because here he is not innocent. He is, as he is now, truly aware of himself. In this fantasy he has been aware for a long time.

When he wants to prolong masturbation he imagines the tenseness of being so close with that knowledge. Every glance amplified, every touch making him hot and heartsick; sitting on his lap is the sweetest torture imaginable.

But mostly it is his bedroom he likes to imagine. Sleeping in it alone had been the primary cause of his sexual awakening. The origin of all he knew initially about eroticism.

Erst wakes easily when he touches him; he can feel the jerk of his thighs, and of course, in a fantasy he simply knows. He doesn’t do anything at first, not while he’s just getting into bed with him. That’s clean enough. But when Ghift starts pulling his underwear down, then he puts his hand on his shoulder, not quite pushing him away or making him stop. “We shouldn’t,” he says. “We’re brothers.”

All he does is make soft little protests like that, and when things get down to it---when Ghift is fitting and sucking his cock into his mouth the best he can---all he does is blind himself with his forearm. Because he loves him too, wants him too, but he’s always so concerned with how others think that he’d never make a move himself.

That one usually stops when he ends up with a mouthful of come (a little of his own he has tasted before, to better imagine what his brother’s might taste like, and hated it even while still thinking he’d happily have Erst’s if he could) because going too much further is sometimes too frustrating. He’d thought about this child-self riding his brother from on top, and how amazing it must be to feel so full and helpless yet still in control, so intently that it was the first time he attempted penetrating himself with his fingers.

It was a spur of the moment experiment, aided only by spit and pre-come. One finger went in easily enough, then two with a great deal of effort, and then though he was not stuffed full in the way he imagined, his ass still felt so stretched to the brim he could barely move inside it. By focusing on the tightness he could eke out a pretty good climax, but eventually he became so used to his own fingers the effect went away.

Plain massage oil helped, but trying to use three fingers made his wrist hurt. And still, they weren’t deep or thick enough. He knows dildos exist and could do for him what fingers alone couldn’t, but the thought of going to a store like that reignited whatever old remnants of bashfulness remained in him. Besides, it is beneath his dignity. Besides, he is saving himself.

Besides, he isn’t incapable of enjoying himself all alone. Massage oil makes hitting his prostate easier. The frustration of the on-top fantasy often outweighed it, but for the more passive one, pretending to be asleep, it makes it easier to relax and take in the imagined mood.

Sometimes he thinks, too, of Folth and their childhood games together, and what might have happened if they hadn’t unnerved each other that once. With Folth he is rarely subservient---he likes the thought of besting him more, winning some exhilarating game of tag or wrestling or sword-fighting, and exploring his trophy however he likes. It is only with Folth that he tries occasionally to imagine him as an adult. He can’t have changed much over the years. A squarer jaw, thinner cheeks, taller but undoubtedly still bright-eyed and sweetly smiling.

As adults his imaginings are perhaps more conventional compared to the other ones. He comes home after a long day (of enacting his will upon the world) and is greeted by his loving househusband and they eat a delicious home-cooked meal followed by passionate lovemaking. He has decided Folth probably is a ‘makes love’ type. Noisy. The day they bed (and he never doubts that they will, someday) he wonders how he himself will turn out. It’s hard to know when his only experience is jerking off.

If it were possible he’d daydream all the time. But it is a good thing in the end that he can only expound on his musings at night; he’d never get anything done otherwise, and lately, he has a feeling that things are going to revv up again. He can no longer be sheltered in another’s home, and his research can develop no further as is. But blood carries blood, not just for family lineages, but for groups and alliances, as well. He knows where to turn.


	21. requitement

Erst wakes to his seventh morning in the new world he has arrived in. He wishes a little that he hadn’t, though he assumes there must be a reason for it. There is, isn’t there? It’s so weird he’s trying not to think about it too hard. Fillujah... when he entered this world, the Nether infection ate up his mind and sanity. Folth, Arca, and their Crosses saved him. And now, before he has even a chance to settle things where he comes from, he has been embroiled in another conflict.

If he tries to be optimistic, he assumes he will learn something here that will help him for later.

And Folth... Folth. It’s been so long since he has last seen him, and that was as a little boy. He can still hardly believe it’s him, though it’s pretty obvious when he pays attention. There’s more to it than having the same red hair, the violet color of his eyes. It’s the awe in his voice he recognizes when he speaks to him, the way his face lights up when their eyes meet.

It still makes him all warm and fuzzy. He’s not sure if that’s pathetic or not.

He sighs, and turns in his hospital bed as the hours while away. According to Ist when he returns to his world he’ll... slot right back into place, as if he never left. They won’t even have their memories of being here. Still, it’s hard to keep stay in one place. He gets watched like a hawk whenever he takes a walk. Maybe it’s part of the process in adjusting to so much new but he has been filled with a familiar malaise and restlessness here, as though there were something he ought to do immediately that he cannot. 

There comes a knock, tapping at his door.

“Come in,” he says, before anything else can be said. He’s hungry for anyone’s company.

The door opens. Erst sits up straight to meet his visitor. “Good evening, Folth.”

“Good evening. I came to see how you’re doing.” Folth smiles brightly for him, the way he always has. Gods, he’s missed being looked at like that. Ever since the Nether...

“Making sure I’m not getting into trouble?” he suggests, half-kidding.

“Your words, not mine!”

...hardly anyone has looked at him at all. And never so affectionately. “Then..?”

Folth closes the door behind himself then pauses thoughtfully. “I don’t imagine it’s all that fun here. I wanted to ask you if you wanted out for some fresh air with me...? I already asked Kunon for the okay.”

Hearing someone needed to get an okay for him to go outside brings him down again for one sharp moment. But it does sound nice. Maybe he needs a good breeze to blow some of his depression away. “Sure. That’d be nice, I think.”

They go out on one of the paths surrounding the hospital. The air is as nice as he could possibly hope for, just chill enough it makes you want to lean in closer to someone. The stars are coming out, faint little diamond chips of light set in the deepening blue sky.

They walk side by side, shoulders not quite touching. He wants to lean in, too. Since regaining his human body he has felt cold he never has even as a kid. He wants to feel someone’s touch, someone’s warmth, after so so long. This urge is far from new to him, especially where Folth is concerned. So warm he could bathe in his attention, so sincere and kind, all that worship just for him, a reprieve from a loveless childhood and a sullen, ungrateful little brother.

“You keep pulling at your sleeve,” Folth says casually, as if discussing something more mundane. “Does it still... worry you?”

“Ten years is a long time to build a habit,” he mumbles, forcing his hand back to his side. No more Nether. Not even a scratch on him. But it was ten years of that sludge marked on him, arm first, then abdomen as it spread. He could never not be conscious of it. Being back in his body makes it worse. “How much do you remember from back then?”

“I remember you saving me after the Gate.” His voice shifts lower, might sound accusatory from anyone else. “You told me Ghift moved away. I waited so long, hoping to get a letter. I thought he just forgot about me.”

“Sorry...”

“And you, too. I was so worried... something happened, or... both of you forgot...” He’s still smiling but his voice tightens just a little.

They come to a stop, overlooking the rest of the island in the space it floats in. What else can he say? If Folth had forgotten about _them_ it would be for his own good. But maybe he should have known there was no hope of that. And Folth is a Summoner now too. He’d have been involved in any case.

He’s not sure if he can promise not to leave again. Once they return, his Nether infection will too.

Folth takes his hand.

Erst’s breath stills. The ice defrosts from his hand, snaking tendrils of warmth up his arm.

When he turns to him, is it starlight or tears making his eyes so bright? “I’d never forgotten either of you, for one second. When we go back don’t let me go again.”

Either way, he is beautiful. And before he hugs him, Erst thinks very clearly, _oh no_.


	22. sensibility

Eventually Erst is well enough to take to the battlefield again; with the way Summoning works here he doesn’t need to actually be a Summoner, though with his training and natural (bred for) talent, he is still above their more physically-oriented warriors. No need for actual Otherworlders… or a Cross, either.

He and his had been part of each other in that shell. He misses hearing his voice. He had felt his love for him, so ever present it too was eventually subsumed by the Nether, made into the background.

Around the many, many others here, he is reserved. He has joined too late, he feels, to be truly part of them. All he has is Folth (and Arca in a way, by transference), then to a lesser extent, the little yokai he had once met, and Corlal, with his gracious offering of being his new ‘Guardian Beast’. Folth is the one he spends the most time with of them, on the battlefield and off. It’s impossible to get over what a fine young man he’s grown into. Friendly with everyone, with an ease of manner that makes it clear this is the norm for him, a strong Summoner in his own right, and—handsome. It’s impossible not to notice so he tries to only notice it objectively, as if Folth was his own little brother.

When he praises him it makes his heart go ‘badump badump’ in a way it hadn’t before. Pretty sure it hadn’t, though he did give him more satisfaction than he could possibly ever know with his fawning. That’d be sick, wouldn’t it? As adorable as he always found Folth speaking to him had never made his heart race, or fill his mind at night with all sorts of wistful dreams. 

If he had been able to watch him grow up… if Ghift had never gotten this mad idea about the Bratterns in his head… even Nether-infected, he could have at least insured Folth an easier life by keeping him out of their family business. If he could have killed his little brother, and then himself…

It’s for the best they’re supposed to lose their memories. It would be so hard to kill himself after having gotten to know Folth like this.

Sad to lose that hug, too. For a moment it felt as though a furnace had been lit inside of him. It gave him as well a provocative awareness of him as an adult; the strength of his arms around his waist squeezing the air out of him just a little bit, and the solid press of his chest against his.

Around the point he catches himself thinking about that fact too hard, he must admit that his ‘observing’ is less than noble. It’s all mixed up with who he is now and who he’s been, and whether this is an appropriate thing to be feeling, but there it is. At the very least he is attracted to him… just thinking that makes him feel gross. Attracted to his little brother’s best friend. Ugh. It’s pathetic by itself, but even more so knowing there’s no hope of reciprocation. Folth’s feelings for him are platonic. At some point he might have suspected something else, a precocious little puppy crush, but that would have faded by now. A decade of that is too romantic to be real.

One evening as they are walking together for the night, splintered-off from the main group during the return back to everyone’s dwellings, Folth holds his hand again, in a very casual way without preamble or build-up. “Are you still staying at the hospital?”

“Yeah. I know there’s plenty of room, but I guess I’m just used to it by now.” And the final conflict here looms closer and closer. No point getting settled elsewhere.

“Weeelll… if you want, you can stay in my room with me. At least you won’t be alone there all day.” His hand squeezes, once. It’s a kind offer, made from the sympathy in his heart.

But Erst can’t let himself give himself any false ideas. “Nah, I’m fine. We’ll be home soon, anyway.”

“I suppose.” Folth looks away, gazing at the buildings around them. So many empty, but he offers his own living space. He’s always been a thoughtful boy. “I’ll be waiting. If you change your mind.”


	23. glass half empty

He makes another friend, not one he would have previously suspected he’d be up to making, in Raj. To be honest, it feels more like unloading all of his problems on him than an actual friendship… but he’s a curious boy, and seems to enjoy hearing about parts of his business, at least so he’d like to think.

These nights out on the roof becomes precious memories in themselves.

“What are you going to do when you get back?” Raj sits knees up, chin in his arms. His eyes glow almost like a cat’s in the dark. Bright gold.

“I have to see about my brother first.” He hasn’t told him all about that, but he knows the gist of things. “If I can stop him, I figure the rest will sort itself out.” The possibility of suicide is one he’s kept entirely private; airing something like that would cause too much anxiety. Even if he goes back free of the Nether, he doesn’t know what he’d do. He doubts he’d be able to get his old job back after his stint as the Blue Machine Summoner.

“Your face looks like you’re thinking ‘but’.”

“But, if I’m infected again I’m not sure if I’ll have control over myself anymore.”

“You think you’ll lose to it? The Erst I know is a stronger person than that.”

“I’m going to do my best, of course…”

Raj hmms, and lets go of his knees. His upper body turns to face him, and his hands lay right next to one of Erst’s. It’s a little close for comfort for an ordinary person, but Raj is so often in everyone’s face he barely notices anymore. “If you’re still sick, then Folth can help you too!”

“It took Folth and Arca and four Crosses to make me better.”

“Being here made your infection worse! So when you go back, if you and Folth believe in each other, I know he can cure you again.”

Even if that’s possible he’s not sure he could do his own part. Nether eats at more than the body. It had turned every thought and emotion in his mind against him. It told him that no one can be trusted. That believing in others was weakness. “I guess you’re right,” he says though, because at this rate if he keeps disagreeing, it’s going to feel like maybe he _wants_ things to go all wrong.

“It won’t be nice to make me worry about you after you’re gone.”

“You’re right.” He lays down, until his vision is filled with the stars and Raj’s eyes peering down at him. “You’re completely right. I’m sorry.”

“So then?”

“I’ll beat the Nether infection, if I still have it. Then I’ll find a way to stop Ghift, and…”

“And?”

“One day I’ll find a way back here. I promise I’ll find a way to remember you.” These short, treasured days, and the world he’ll have helped to save. Hell, if he can do that for this one, why not his own? He is in a state now to realize how much he’s being counted on, and he’s always strove for that. He needs others to believe in him to supplant his inability to believe in himself. “I’ll introduce you to Ghift, too.”

“I can’t wait! I want to go to your world someday too! I want to meet everyone you care about, and see all the things you see. I think that about all of you, but where you’re from especially.” He leans further into his field of vision, smiling.

It is so often lost in what he knows he might have to do and their difficult history, but he doesn’t think that’s a bad or wrong way of looking at it. Ghift is someone he cares about. His bratty little brother.


	24. #dcdbd9

“Folth!” Lorah trills, the instant she sees him. Anything to get a break, he thinks with some amusement. He’d seen her while coming up the streets, sweeping the in front of her store with slow, absent movements. “Visitor for you inside.”

“Thanks, Lorah.” He meets Kagerou’s side-glance. Just lately he’s been busy with so many people he can’t really begin to guess who it might be. “Anyone I know?”

“No one _I_ know. Quite handsome, though! I approve.”

He chuckles. “Alright, Lorah.”

Maybe it’s someone who came to ask help from him personally, instead of through the Eucross. He’ll probably have to put even more paperwork on it later, but whatever, he’s a helper. He can’t deny them if it turns out too urgent for bureaucracy.

The bell tingles like always as he enters Lorah’s cafe and business for other sundry goods and services.

There’s someone sitting at the bar stools—a man, he thinks, by the shape of the shoulders. His heart twinges at the sight of his back and unruly hair. It twinges before his mind can even begin to wonder why he should feel anything at all. “This is Summoner Folth. Can I assist you?”

The man had turned a little when he walked in. Now, at the sound of his voice, he swings around fully on the stool.

“Errrrst! Erst!”

There are a thousand and one questions he should probably be asking. All he can think is how happy he is. For an instant he is a child again, running to greet him and hugging his thighs (except now he’s tall enough to go for the shoulders instead). “You’re alright!” And not a day older in appearance since he last saw him in the flesh.

Kagerou hovers anxiously behind him. “But, big bro…”

But, more importantly at the moment, Erst hugs him back, and ruffles his hand in his hair, just like he used to. His laughter puffs into his neck. It tingles. “Folth. Kagerou.”

“You remember! I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, even though you only met once. The other times we… I mean… I thought you might not be thinking clearly.”

“What happened to the Nether on you?”

Folth angles away from Erst to look at his Cross. He’s pouting a little, probably still nettled about being manipulated by Ghift, and their battles with Erst. But if he had ever known Erst the way he had, he’d know he’d never try to hurt them in his right mind. “It’s fine, Kagerou. I’m sure he can explain everything.”

And he does, in a long, unbelievable tale that Folth believes because it is Erst telling it to him.

“...so all we have to do now is stop Ghift, right?” Try as he might, he can’t recall any memories of being in this other place. The names he mentions sound vaguely familiar, but that might just be wishful thinking. Erst’s theory for his being able to remember is simply ‘I promised’, which makes sense to him. It’s nice to keep promises, and Erst is nice, so…

“Yes. I know it’s my responsibility more than anyone else’s, as his older brother. But I don’t know how much help I can be if I can’t Summon. If you’ll have me on the field regardless...”

“Just knowing you’re alright makes me feel a lot better. I know I can face Ghift completely focused.” At some point during his recounting of their shared adventure he took the stool next to him, and Kagerou took Folth’s other side. His anxiety is, for Folth, literally palpable, but mitigated by how sweet his protectiveness feels. “You’ve been through a lot, Erst. If you’ll believe in me…”

That gets a real smile out of him. “Then you’ll definitely win, right?”

“Right. That’s the best help I can ask from you.”

If he can pull this off, then not only will he have another chance to bring Ghift to his senses, he’ll be able to show how much he’s grown, too. He can’t tell exactly how Erst thinks of him, but it’s probably something along the lines of ‘my little brother’s friend’, as if he were still a child.

A week of searching commences, at the end of which they don’t find Ghift themselves, but he makes himself known with the usual outpouring of weird goop monsters and human experiments run amok. In those seven days Folth tries to distinguish himself with Erst; he cooks! he cleans! He’s still a sleepyhead to the ninth degree, but he’s an adult, with his own place to live. Erst rejected his offer of staying with him, renting instead a room elsewhere for the time being. When he praises him it’s still stuff like ‘you’re so cute, Folth’ and ‘you’re such a good boy, Folth’. Kagerou gets moodier by the day, too.

So by the time of what is hopefully their final confrontation, he’s a little frustrated.

“Folth!”

“Ghiiift! Please just surrender already!”

Ghift scowls; he’s even better at it now than he used to be. It’s a cute look for him. Like an angry kitten, though he’s not much close to the pink-cheeked, round-faced boy he used to be. Each time Folth sees him he looks more and more run-down, and he wonders if what he’s doing is making him lose any sleep at night. “You’re going to have to drag me in. I’m not giving up. I’m going to make you look at me if it’s the last thing I do!”

“What the hell are you talking about? I’m right here!”

It’s obvious where this is going. He lists orders off rapidly. Yeng-hua, watch the back. Abert, back her up. Kagerou… stick close.

Ghift’s first strike makes his arm go numb blocking it. Stronger than he used to be. Stronger than even the last time they fought. Brace his legs. Counter. Their blades clang together, part messily, catch each other’s arms on the downswing. Battle becomes erratic, a rhythm. He is peripherally aware of the others but trusts them to their own for now.

“Ah---!”

Pain sears through his thigh. The smell of blood fills his nose. This isn’t the first time Ghift has drawn his blood recently but it makes him angry in a way it hadn’t before. All he wanted was to be a cool Summoner and live in peace with his childhood friend/crush and childhood mentor/crush! Preferable going steady with at least one of them!

The pain fades. Thanks, Kagerou. Sometimes he thinks he’d be better off dating him…

“That’s cheating!” Ghift says indignantly, between big puffs of breath.

“I’m not the one who keeps making reinforcements!” Ghift alone would be easy to handle. It’s all these blobs he keeps summoning that draws things out. And maybe that’s the final straw---being accused of cheating for a friend not letting him bleed to death in a fight where his group is severely outnumbered.

His next swing meets Ghift’s blade head-on and does not glance but sends it flying. Ghift reaches for something else inside his coat but Folth is on him, sending them both tumbling to the ground, before he can draw anything out. His own sword clatters off to the side. Ghift bucks and struggles and tries to bite but he has never won any of their childhood matches, nor does he win this. The most he can manage is a limb an inch off the ground for a few seconds.

“Bro!”

“I’m fine, Kagerou. Help the others finish ‘em off.”

He allows Ghift’s resistance to run its course. The entire time they look each other in the eye but he doesn’t think he’s really seeing him until he is worn down and all the strength has left his arms.

The last time they were this close, they were kids. It ended awkwardly. He still thinks about it sometimes. The warmth of their bodies so close together, the softness of his neck and cheeks also close, the faint bittersweet smell of him. Now they’re breathing so hard in each other’s faces his air is blowing into his mouth.

“Stop. Get off me,” Ghift eventually mumbles. Maybe he’s thinking about it, too. “I give.”

“...no take-backs.”

Folth has him roll over to tie his hands behind his back before he allows him up on his knees. The proper authorities are called after the rest of the Nether creatures are disposed of with Kagerou’s help. He keeps him just one step in front of him with a firm grip on the inside of his elbow. 

His hair’s gotten long. It’s never been as cowlicky as his brother’s but it ends in curling waves he’d never guessed at. When they were kids it was always roughly bobbed.

“Erst is back,” he says. As his little brother he should know this much, even though Folth has no way of telling what will happen after this.

“That tin-bucket? I saw him.” His head cocks a little to the side. “He said he was going to kill me.”

Folth has never set out specifically to kill someone, only stop them. The harsh wording makes him wince. But considering the things Ghift has done, and how cold Erst was during his Nether infection, he’s not surprised. “No, not like that. He’s all better now. Flesh-and-blood.”

Ghift’s arm jerks against his hand. “I see.” That’s all.


	25. nostos algia

A terse month passes. Folth comes up every day it feels like to plead with him; I’m arguing for you to be released into my care, so please behave, please be good. He hasn’t seen Erst, although he’s told he turned himself in after his own capture. It’s Folth who tells him that, not anyone else, so he likely isn’t supposed to know.

“Our testimony makes Erst’s situation a little different from yours now. It’s mostly a matter of investigating the connection between you, and the Brattern heritage. He hasn’t hurt any civilians and he saved a student once. I think it’s going to be easy with him. So please, Ghift...”

He wonders if they’re thinking about life in jail or executing him. Is that why Folth looks so sad when he’s here? At this rate… it’s not that he wants to die, particularly, but having once again been bested, and the only thing he had for an ambition taken from him, his days have become very flat. He wonders what happened to his memento of the old days. Maybe they destroyed it, even though anyone can see it’s just a toy. They took it with everything else he had on him, down to his underwear.

And being released… being released would mean having Folth as his babysitter again. It tempers whatever happiness he might have at the thought of being friendly with him again.

Still, he is good. He behaves and answers all their insipid questions, whenever he can (most of it implicating the Crimson Chain, and the families that had been allied to his cause: no big loss). It won’t look good for Erst if they do have to dispose of him one way or the other. Runs in the blood, they’ll say. If his brother died because of him… sometimes he thinks about it during the night, because it’s one of the few things now that makes him feel anything at all. It makes his eyes hot with the start of tears.

There’s no knowing what kind of sob stories Folth has to tell (or worse, how much influence he has, especially now), but they do let him out. Into Folth’s custody. Stupid Folth, still shining brightly. Just as handsome as he knew he’d turn out. He had no doubt the first time he saw him that it was his old childhood friend. Erst is with him too, but he tries not to look that way overly.

“I can’t exactly tell you you’re a free man now, but at least you’re not in a cell, right?” Folth says by way of unintentionally soul-crushing greeting. Maybe now that Erst is released he can have them execute him anyway.

“...Folth. Brother.” He glances to Erst, and is relieved to see that he’s had a hard time of it too. There’s a disheveled air to him, shadows under his eyes. “Did they officially fire you?”

“Ghift!”

“Yeah. I saw it coming, but, you know.” He shrugs. It’s an I-don’t-really-care gesture, easily seen through.

He’d have thought that would decrease Folth’s admiration but when he looks at him—to, what?---make sure he isn’t going to burst into tears?---it is with the same soppy expression of love. Some things never change. “By the way, Ghift. They’ve cleared some of your things to give back to you. They were just checking for… you know.”

“Oh.” Folth hands him a bag of what little effects he had on him. Feels like clothes, maybe shoes. Did they hand Folth the bag already full, or things to put into a bag?

“You kept it, huh?” Folth smiles. The same obnoxiously big, sweet smile as in their childhood.

“Sh-shut up.”

“It’s cute! I kept mine too.”

Erst looks politely between them.

“That doesn’t make me happy or anything. But at least you can remember your promises.”

“If you win, try not to ask for anything unreasonable.”

If he asked him for his help taking over the world, what then? But that’s too dangerous a thing to say (whether a joke or not) right outside the Eucross headquarters.

They walk together back to Folth’s place so he can change into his actual clothing (and neaten himself in the mirror, wondering what they see when they look at him). When Folth said his place was converted from a warehouse, he’d expected something dingier, but it’s a nice building, and that puts him out of sorts. Of course, it’s just a rental. Even so. After moving out, the only places he could get for himself were on-and-off apartments and in the laboratory he kept with the Crimson Chain.

He takes a look around as he slowly makes his way back to the living room. He’s not quite ready for what kind of conversation he knows is going to go on in there. No doubt they’ll have to discuss his future and how he can possibly redeem himself even though the truth is, he doesn’t feel bad at all. The people he’s hurt are not anyone he cares about, and insignificant compared to his goals. He’s not looking forward to the reaction to him saying that though.

When he does dawdle along finally it looks exactly like some messed-up intervention; the best friend, the family member, and the hostile one who thinks the guy getting it has a snowball’s chance in hell. Since it’s basically true he can’t fault Kagerou for looking at him like he is. A feeling of tension is coming from the others too, but he’s the only one standing, and to make his point of distrust especially pointed, right behind where Folth is sitting.

He takes a seat before anyone can tell him to, on the far end of the couch with Folth. “We need to talk.” Best to take the initiative.

Folth nods. “The trouble is knowing where to start. The better we understand you the better we can keep something like this from happening again.”

“Understand me?” This should be his chance. Spill all of it out and see what happens. But his truths are vulnerable, so they stick in his throat. Telling the truth means admitting to his insecurities and affections. It does not feel that airing them would be any good for him in the long run. “I thought what I wanted was pretty obvious.”

“Was it really just the Brattern legacy thing?” His brother sits on the opposite seat, at an angle from him. Out of the corner of his eyes he sees Folth turn his head to look at him. His visage is soft. Sickening. “I know you bought into all that stuff when you were little. That’s what led you this far?”

“That’s the main gist of it. But there’s something to be said for strength as a whole, too. Summon Arts are weaker than they used to be.” He begins to speak earnestly, leaning forward. “If something happens---some invasive threat from one of the other worlds, we’d have little way to save ourselves if we can’t force Summons to serve.”

He’d have thought he’d get some reaction to nicely distract further from himself, some yuck about Summons being friends ( _best friends_ , he heard once, _a bond so strong they can sense each other’s emotions and thoughts_ and has the same welling of dislike for Kagerou that he’d once had for the idea of his brother’s Cross) but Folth and Erst exchange some bemused look instead.

“You probably don’t have to worry, then,” Folth says. “Friendship is more powerful than a forced pact of servitude.” It is yuck, but there’s some kind of genuine meaning behind his words, and the look they shared. “This is going to sound crazy…”

And it did. Utterly. It’s so crazy he’d think they were lying to him if it wasn’t so out of character for them both. A world-devouring monster? But the story also explains Erst’s cured Nether infection.

He doesn’t feel happiness or any sort of relief. Folth and Erst had some amazing adventure in another world where they saved all of Lyndbaum what sounds like a million times over. How could he be happy about that.

Life really is just too miserable.

His vision doubles, then blurs. He cups his hands over his face to sigh into. “Then it was for nothing. Trying to beat you, trying to do something great. It was no use.”

“Beat me? Ghift...”

Folth’s hand on his arm is gentle but prying, and he cannot stand it, being pried open, the hard cool stone lifted to reveal the mud and bugs beneath. He jerks away, almost stands, decides that would be retreating, and backs instead against the arm of the couch. “The one thing that was _mine_ and I can’t have it!”

His chest is full, ashes and smoke. Folth’s face doubles, triples, before he forces the image still. How can he be seconds away from totally losing it when his eyes are so hot and dry? “The only way I could make either of you love me. Like I loved you both. If I could just make you see…” He drifts off, suddenly anxious. Erst is frowning solemnly, not angry or shocked, so he must receive his words as a brother should.

Folth smiles… his eyes squeezing at the corners. “I’ve always felt the same way,” he says, but he’s not sure immediately how that’s supposed to be meant. “When we were kids I had the biggest crush on Erst. I loved you too, just as you were. Even though you were selfish, too competitive, and so often I had no idea what you were thinking, I loved you. I do still.”

“Me?” Can’t be. Other than a few… moments… he never had the impression Folth looked at him in that way. The sweet look of longing he always saw him giving Erst… he’d notice if he was making that face at him, wouldn’t he?

He looks flusteredly around the room as though there’s some kind of hint to uncover or a sign to read. The entrance door in the room over he wishes he could just walk out of. A cheerful painted sunflower framed on the wall, a big old lie. Kagerou with his chin in his hands and gazing away (oh, too bad, he thinks with numb sincerity), Erst’s hands clenched together, leg bouncing, undoubtedly wishing he didn’t have to bear witness to any part of his little brother’s potential love life.

“Me?”

“You.”

But I’m selfish, too competitive, and hate being honest. “Why, if I’m—all those things?”

“It’s like blue cheese,” Folth says. “It’s salty, sharp, and smells bad, but lots of people like it anyway.”

“...are you comparing me to moldy cheese?”

“The point is, I like blue cheese! And I like you.”

He mouths an ‘oh’. This is something he’s dreamed of, but it is too dreamlike still to get very excited. Later when he’s in bed for the night it’ll hit him full-force.

“...blue cheese and I have a difficult history,” Erst says at length, standing up from his seat. “But I’ve always liked it, even when it might have seemed otherwise.”

“Stop talking like I’m cheese.”

Erst squeezes himself in beside him and the arm, so that Ghift himself ends up squeezed between the two of them. His brother strokes his hair back like he used to once in a while, except that it is a whole lot more intimate from his side now that they are nearly eye to eye. “I know I wasn’t a good big brother sometimes. I really tried, but I wasn’t. I was impatient, irritable, and when you started following our parents I resented you for it. But I always, always loved you, and wanted the best for you.”

“I met Folth because of you.” That day he would have continued secluding himself if left to his own. He needed that push. It’s too much though, being this close; even when he turns his face down he feels them on both sides, close, and so warm. “I always loved you, too. So much.” If he only knew _how_ much.

“And this thing you’re looking for out of life, whatever it turns out to be, we can search for together.” Ghift feels his arm slide around his back, then Folth’s. “I’m not sure what to do anymore either, honestly. Being a Summoner was the only thing I ever considered. He sighs, with a bit of laugh behind it. “Now that you’re old enough we can drown our sorrows away together! I’ve always wanted to do that at least once.”

“I used to run Lorah’s cafe part-time.” Folth is so close now his cheek is pressing into his. Not baby-soft anymore but still smooth. “So I know how to make and mix drinks.”

“See? Folth can bartend us.”

“I can pick you out some of the hard drinks I liked too! But first you need to try my liqueur coffee.”

Ghift keeps staring at the floor. Morons. He’s in love with two morons.


	26. uitwaaien

Folth decides a little trip around the city and its outskirts is in order. He’d have liked it if they could leave Savorle, ‘get you some fresh air’ as he puts it as though their experiences here have left a smog of some kind, but the powers that be are only willing to grant a small break to him for his hard work lately. For subduing him, Ghift supposes.

Even with the new openness among them he certainly feels subdued.

He’d asked, “How much trouble do you suppose you’d be in if you and I actually got together?”

And Folth cheerfully answered, “Worlds.”

Which isn’t an encouraging thing to hear. Not that he really cares about Folth getting in trouble by itself, but the best thing that could happen to him is getting reassigned to some other babysitter.

Leaving the Summon behind was another headache; Kagerou made it very plain he’d rather Folth not go walking off with two people who’d previously tried to kill him. Ghift and Erst awkwardly avoided looking at each other while he pleaded with his ‘big bro’ to please please not leave. Maybe they have more in common than he thought.

When Folth started squishing his cheeks together and telling him to be a good boy while he was gone, he just had to clear the room. Way too much. 

The day after he asked him how well he thought Kagerou had taken his love confession to someone else. That is… he knew, didn’t he?

“Sure I know. I hadn’t planned to do that in front of him, but things kind of led that way. Anyway, he’s like a little brother to me. I can’t think of him as anything else. We talked about it, and he understands.”

Not an encouraging thing to hear either, for other reasons.

He and Folth aren’t exactly moving along either.

He hasn’t been able to bring himself to kiss him, or even just to touch him. They take separate beds at each inn they stay the night at. The one evening they drink only he and Erst really partake, and while he is not unappreciative of his brother turning out to be a huggy drunk, it’s hard to let himself go with someone still only buzzed in the room.

The change of scenery each day is nice. It’s something he might have wanted for himself if he knew what he wanted now. It helps him stray further from the inside of his head. If he tries to pretend, this is just a cute little trip with him, his best friend, and big brother.

If he could just surrender himself…

They are on their tenth day of this, now on the bare edges of the city where it can’t really be called a city anymore, in some out-of-the-way little inn. Erst tucks in at a proper bedtime most nights. Folth he often sees out on the balcony, the porch, once up on the roof of a place that had neither. Sometimes just for a few minutes, sometimes up to an hour, enjoying the stars or the breeze.

This time he goes to him. It’s another porch, another cool night. He’s only seen Folth wear pajama pants to bed this week (and tried not to ogle at how ‘grown-up’ his physique has gotten), a little short in the leg like he hasn’t bothered replacing them for a while. He’s typically underwear-only himself but he picked up a pajama set the first chance he got. He’s not sure he can stand to have both of them seeing him that unclothed yet. Erst, in a disgusting display of self-confidence, freely wears his trunks and nothing else around the bedroom.

“Did you bring it with you?”

Folth glances at him over his shoulder. “Mhmm. I was wondering if you’d want to. I guess you’re not where you really want to be yet, but maybe it’d relax you. You still put your all into what you were doing, after all.”

“I think I need to. To have it done with.”

“Okay. Right now?”

“Yeah.”

They meet outside in the backyard, each equipped with a relic of the past, still dressed for bed. Not a fight to the death, just a test of wills. He doesn't know at this point what he'll ask for if he wins. If he wants to leave he thinks Folth will let him, even if it means getting in trouble, even if others end up hurt, even if he has to put him down the next time they meet. Maybe what he's hoping is that Folth will win. So that he can feel like he can really be here.

That doesn't mean he'll take it easy on him.

The grip of the toy sword was made for a smaller hand than he has now; its balance to his body and range are also off. Folth suffers likewise. The first few minutes of their bout are the clumsy movements of a novice. Then they meet one another so fiercely it's a wonder the swords don't simply smash apart.

For a stretch of time that feels like eternity, a little world unto itself, all he hears is the clack-clack-clack of wood on wood ringing in his ears, and all he sees is Folth, the direction of his shoulders and arms with each thrust, the stance of his legs as he braces for the next blow or block. Everything else is noise to his senses. For now he is in a place where only they exist and so only they matter.

It's wonderful. If it were possible he'd always live in a world like this, just the three of them. But it comes to an eventual end, like all his ambitions. His sword is smacked out of his stinging palm and he falls to his knees in parts relief and defeat.

It overpoweringly smells like grass from all they've crushed underfoot. One of his soles aches like he'd stepped on a rock. Sweat drips down his cheek and spine. Folth approaches until he is standing right before him; and he is aware of his position as a trophy, won, earned; he shivers. But he made him work for it. He's sweaty too, glowing with it, and red from forehead to the amazing little space between his pecs.

"'Just one'. Ask for whatever you want."

"I want," Folth kneels before him, eyes dilated, "you to stay with me. Even just as friends."

He swallows and whispers, "I don't want to be just your friend."

It happens so slow there's room to back out if he wants. He doesn't want to. He wants to stay still for Folth to grasp his shoulder and come close, wants to see his eyes close to slivers, the last thing he sees because his eyes are closing to, wants the press of his mouth against his. His lips are soft, and warm with exertion. God, finally, after all these years---

A round of applause goes off. They jerk apart.

Erst (dressed, thankfully) and a few others, one he recognizes as the innkeeper, are standing on the porch and clapping. He cups his hands around his mouth and hollers, "Congrats!"

"Go back inside!"

Erst waits outside while the others head in, laughing and chatting among themselves. Ghift reluctantly heads up with Folth close by. "What are you doing?"

"You woke up a lot of people with your racket.” He grins, not as widely as he might expect. “I had to make something up... though I guess it turned out to be basically true.”

“And what would that be?”

“Something about a duel he had to win before eloping with you. I don’t think they see gestures like that here often, so they were more accommodating afterwards...”

If their parents were still alive it probably would turn out to be a situation like that; in a larger sense it’s still true, in terms of the Brattern legacy itself. He’s not pleased about a bunch of strangers knowing any part of his business though. On the other hand, whenever they can be open about their relationship he wouldn’t mind seeing Folth’s parents to tell them. “Brother… you’re the worst.”

“Folth, your boyfriend thinks I’m the worst.”

“He’s just being Ghift,” says Folth, which sounds like an insult really. He’s distractedly rubbing the back of his head. “I’ll apologize in the morning.”

“They had their little show, so I don’t think that’s necessary.”

“Come on, let’s start your new life with me by being a little nice!”

Their life. Together. “...f-fine.”

They head back to their room. It’s still the middle of the night, enough time that he’ll feel gross in his sweat and dirty feet all night. Will Folth bathe with him if he asks? Or is that too much so soon? Neither of them had given it a second thought as kids, but they were, well, kids.

“Do you want to--”

“--wash-up? Yeah, I think we both need one now.”

That was easy. Maybe it’s just a platonic thing to him.

It’s a small tiled room, about as big as the one in Folth’s childhood home. They have to stand opposite against the walls, then the tub, to make room. He has heard of the ‘third date’ rule for sex and wonders where being childhood friends stands on that scale of readiness. Not that he’s thinking about sex tonight, but he’s trying very hard to keep his mind chaste so no problems pop up. It’s very difficult. So difficult he thinks the only thing keeping it down is his anxiety about the situation. His gut tells him Folth wouldn’t be offended if he did get hard, but he’d tease, and he feels a little sensitive for that right now.

Folth washes under the spray first. His body, like Erst’s, is a little more solid than Ghift’s, but still on the lean side of muscular. The lovely valley of his spine fills with water like a riverbed, coursing all the way down his back until it floods over the tight curve of his butt, and into the crevice between. He is old enough to wash his hair, and either because of that or because he can sense the tension, he does not ask for help. When he leans forward to rinse his shoulder blades become beautifully delineated. By the time his back is all that’s left he rests his arms for a moment against the wall until the spray has turned the skin there pink.

Between all the rivulets of water on his skin, and the way the pose makes his rear jut out all inviting-like… Ghift hopes the lurch in his belly stays in his belly, and tries to think of the most boner-killing thing he can. Washing dishes. Hangover. His parents… no, that just makes him feel gross when he’s trying not to be turned-on. And from there his mind wants to make the leap to his brother, which definitely doesn’t help.

They switch places. Instead of getting out now that he’s squeaky-clean, Folth stays where he had, in the back of the tub, and makes conversation as he busies himself with vigorous washing as a distraction. Shoulders, arms, dirt under his nails.

“I hope Erst doesn’t feel like a third-wheel or anything. You’re both… precious to me.” Folth’s voice lowers under the drumming of the water. Soft, tinged with _feeling_.

“...can I ask you a question?”

“What’s up?”

“Are you still in love with him?” He’d spoken like it was just a childhood thing before, but nothing he’s seen makes him believe that.

“Huh?” His voice ups a pitch, then is very forcibly cheerful. “What makes you think that?”

“Well, you’re not good at hiding it, for one thing.” Chest, belly. He likes Folth and Erst. Folth likes Erst and him. His brother is the only part of their triangle who’s intentions he doesn’t know. Maybe, if he at least likes Folth back… “I’m not bothered by it.”

There’s a pause and when Folth speaks again, he sounds more somber. “You’re sure? The way things are between you, I thought you’d be upset.”

“I was before. But that was when I thought you only liked him.” If Erst does only like Folth back, he might even be satisfied with that. The idea of making love to Folth after he’s been with his brother, has his spit in his mouth, and his semen between his legs… no, stop, stop it. “If things didn’t work out between us, would you have tried him next?”

“Ghift...”

“It’s fine. I mean it.” One precariously balanced foot on the tub’s edge, then the other. “Would you?”

“...yes.”

Does that make him Folth’s first choice, or did he choose him because it was simply with him things developed that way first? “How do you think he feels? About you, I mean.”

“Eh? The same as always. He thinks I’m just a kid.” He sure sounds glum telling his new boyfriend about how another guy might not be into him. But it’s alright. He understands that feeling. It’s hard to be seen as a child. “Are you worried?”

“No. Just curious.”

He washes his hair in silence. He hopes Folth is watching him, the same way he had been watching him.


	27. amuhin

In the morning it takes an hour of prodding before Folth wakes up, an hour that only ends when Ghift drops a rag soaked in cold water on his face. Usually it doesn’t matter how long it takes for him to wake up---they’re grown men and can amuse themselves---but since he wanted to apologize, best get that out of the way or he’ll feel bad about it later. Once that is presumably done with Folth returns with a tray full of breakfast foods.

“It’s a special morning, so I availed myself of their kitchen. I paid back their supplies, of course.”

He’s such a goody-two-shoes it makes his teeth ache. But this is the Folth he loves. Sickeningly nice.

The idea of being cooked for is appealing; real cooking, like Erst had done for him a few times. And Erst’s cooking is alright, not particularly special or horrible, and he himself isn’t any better. The mixed drinks had been nice but that can’t compare to a home-cooked meal of love. Orange juice, fried eggs with nuts and berries, banana and blueberry pancakes, little strawberry crepes almost too delicate and pretty to eat, with hardier slabs of buttered toast and rolls filled with bacon and vegetables. He’s never before had much appetite in the morning but suddenly his stomach is tight with hunger. And a very warm, melty sensation. This is Folth’s cooking!

They tuck in together on his bed, both of them sitting on either side of his legs. Erst continually coos over the whole thing in a very ‘proud parent’ tone, like one who’s small child made him breakfast in bed for the first time. ‘You’re so cute! Such a capable young man!’ Each time Folth’s face grows just a little tighter.

After their conversation in the shower last night he tries to read into it more than he has ever bothered during his brother’s praise-sprees. Maybe it’s fake: or more accurately, a cover. Maybe he’s trying desperately to convince himself that Folth is still a little boy. _Why_ he’d want to when Folth is a few years past legal, he doesn’t know. Does he know Folth has a crush on him and is trying to discourage it? Then, why? Does the age difference they’d have if Erst had aged creep him out? Or perhaps, perhaps he likes him back, but doesn’t think it appropriate; for any of those reasons, because he’s now dating his little brother, or whatever?

It’s an idea he likes more and more over the course of their enormous breakfast. Erst likes Folth too but is infantilizing him to avoid it. It must have started during that whole world-devouring monster thing. He _assumes_ his brother isn’t such a pervert that it was during their childhood. But feelings will always out themselves; like Folth’s had; like his own had.

Folth makes tea afterwards, black leaves in a plain metal teapot to pour into little cups, like little eggshells, to fill with amber liquid. For a moment as he pours he is bowed slightly in unassuming subservience, smiling, pink-cheeked, the very model of domestic duty. Erst must think so, too.

“You’d make a great wife,” he says without the babying tone, quiet and serious. There’s a considering look in his eyes that is not Folth’s gentle expression of longing, but which Ghift recognizes as hunger. Folth jerks the teapot, almost scalding himself, and when he looks up he knows they both know each other, finally, just as well as he knows before it happens---as it’s happening this second---that they’ll both look away and go back to pretending.

He has to bring them together. It’s fate. Aside from the possibility of getting more that he wants, he’ll go crazy if they keep stepping around each other.

“If we both like him, then we can both have him.” They both turn to him, all owl-eyed. “If it’s you, I don’t mind sharing.”

“Ghift, that’s...” Erst starts, then is apparently unable to think of what ‘that’ is. He turns away from both of them.

A man should at least try to take what he wants, especially when it’s being offered like this. Or perhaps it is patience that is needed, time to overcome some of the injury of the past; if Folth had been wary of him knowing, perhaps that is also what is keeping his brother back. How dull. Ten years has been enough time to wait already, but, fine. At least it is in the open. They all know now. And at this point the playing field is two against one. Folth is being polite about it, the good boy he’s always been, but he looks between them both and the desire on his face is evident either way.

No more is said about it for the rest of the morning and afternoon. Space enough to let the idea settle in. Get comfortable. Erst acts like normal, as though he has forgotten the whole thing and could not possibly be thinking about it, the liar---how could he think of anything else? Ghift decides to graciously forgive him for wasting their time.

They play along, he and Folth, in normalcy. Most of their day is spent continuing the circuit around the heart of Savorle, teasing, talking through their past together and its sweet bitterness. As evening approaches Ghift books for them a single bed and room, because he is a romantic at heart and some things can’t be denied. Folth offers to cook again but it’s technically his break; there will be time enough for all of his meals later.

They go out to some cozy little restaurant that has a homey atmosphere and sit outside to eat and people-watch. When Erst goes in to pay they deep-kiss for the first time and it’s gross in a way when he can taste the vinegar rice on his tongue but he can’t get enough, anyway. For the single minute they have together he tries to cover every inch of his mouth with his tongue, down to the back of his throat, before they need to part or things will get awkward before they’re supposed to. After, he asks, do you want to? Do you want to try? He doesn’t need to specify what. Folth nods. They understand each other.

By the time Erst returns he feels like he is glowing inside himself. On the walk back they are resistant to small talk, both a little dreamy and inside themselves. It’s dark out now, and the bluish light adds a sensation of loneliness inside him he can’t quite shake. It’s a peculiar thing to have both of these sensations, mixed together, each pulling and drawing out the other even harder. In love, and sadly lonesome. There doesn’t seem to be any reason for it.

When they get to their room Erst predictably plays shy about the bed and wonders aloud at such a mistake being made in such a way that makes it clear he knows and doesn’t approve.

“It’s alright, it’s alright,” Folth soothes, hanging onto his arm to keep him from leaving. “I’ve loved you for so long. You love me too, don’t you? I don’t mind. I want you both,” and his voice is so sweet and husky like he’s been practicing saying those lines in his dreams all these years.

"But,” Erst starts, and the need to come up with excuses and reasons why not is plain on his face. He can’t look Folth in the eye. “I’m so much older...”

“You haven’t aged at all. I’m not sure even mentally, the way you were.” He’s pulling on his coat, guiding it off his shoulders. Ghift stays back and watches with interest. Involving himself will only set things back right now.

“I knew you as a child.”

“I’m not a child anymore.”

“You’re with my little brother...”

“He doesn’t mind.”

The coat thumps to the floor. “But… but...”

“You’re so hard on yourself all the time. It’s alright to have me.”

He gets close enough to kiss his jaw before Erst grabs his elbows with a jerky roughness, like he’s holding onto him as a life raft instead of pushing him away. “If we---if we do, shouldn’t we still have separate rooms? This is my brother you’re talking about.”

And now Ghift must speak up, before something gets arranged without him. “I’m not being left behind ever again. We can share, but I have to be around.”

“That’s too weird,” Erst mumbles, but he’s still staring Folth in his face. “I couldn’t… with you in the same room.”

“Well, I don’t know how far you’re thinking of going already--” Erst looks down from Folth’s eyes to the space between them and flushes “--but we can try a little in relative privacy. We don’t have to touch each other to touch him.”

Folth, good boy, displays a ruthlessness he’d never have expected of him, and steps in close the moment he must feel the grip on his arms weaken and hugs him tight, nothing frightening or unplatonic in itself, but still undoubtedly excruciating. Erst’s hands alight on his shoulder with the lightness of a butterfly, hesitate, then land on his biceps, as though he can’t quite bring himself to hug him back.

“It’s always been the three of us. I think it’d be best if things stayed that way, always.”

He still won’t let him kiss him, but he sighs like the fight has gone out of him, and that’s good enough.

They ready for bed, brushing teeth, changing after a quick shower. He considers wearing just his underwear tonight, but decides he shouldn’t put Erst off anymore than he is already. Erst, amusingly, is self-conscious enough to finally put on an undershirt, like he hasn’t seen his bare chest a dozen times by now.

In bed they line up Erst, Folth, Ghift, with room enough to be comfortable but still pressed fairly close. Heat rises in his belly every time he looks at Folth between them and realizes they are _really_ going to share him, like a toy, or some sex object. Even for just a little bit… Folth does not seem at all anxious, either, is actually smiling to himself like a cat very satisfied in itself. Of course, as much as this is a dream for Ghift, it is one for him, as well. Probably no mere object has ever looked this way, so saucy, with his nipples already hard.

“He was mine first,” Ghift says, the first any of them has spoken since preparing. “So my turn is first.”

“Fine,” Erst says, stubbornly looking away. But he might be excited in spite of himself. His fingers are laced together atop his groin.

He’s having a bit of a situation rising, too.

Folth turns his head to him and they kiss just as easily as they had earlier, lips, teeth, then tongue. He strokes the red strands between his fingers then his cheek, neck, the vein beating hard. He is soft and hard, silk and steel. There’s a pliancy to his muscles, a give to his bones. His body is amazingly receptive to his touch.

“Do you remember that one time?”

Folth chuckles. He’s touching him back, twirling the ends of his hair tight until his scalp tingles and they make little ringlets when he lets go. “You must mean… that was the first time I’d ever felt like that.”

“I always wondered.”

“Was it yours, too?”

“No, but… that’s a story for later.” He can guess how his brother would react to hearing he used to masturbate in his bed. Sick. Wrong. But he wonders how Folth would feel. Would it disgust him too? Or would it excite him?

Folth’s heart beats against his skin, neck, then chest, right under his collarbone. A hard, strong beat, full of vigor.

His skin scruffs a little under Folth’s hands where his calluses drag, a minute abrasion that leaves him feeling even more sensitized. The irritation forces an even greater awareness of where he is. He makes his first noise when he comes up his shirt, dragging it high enough to bare his belly (a little gesture that makes him ridiculously vulnerable for a moment), and gropes the side of his chest, rubbing his roughened thumb against his nipple. Just a little ‘ah’ of noise, without much voice. His body starts to feel so sweet and heavy it’s hard to keep touching back. It’s the same heaviness he’s familiar with those long hours on his brother’s bed.

His slowed movements don’t go without notice. “It’s fine.” Folth nods. “Just enjoy yourself.” Then, in a whisper, “I need to save my energy.” He smiles. Yes, it’d be a shame for him to be too worn out for Erst.

It is strange to relax like this. It is like surrendering. Folth touches him with such shameless eagerness for their first time of fooling around that their positions seem to have reversed; he is the toy, the object, and he remembers how he felt when Folth bested him. He grabs and rubs and fondles any part of him that catches his interest, even wrists, like he’s trying to figure out how the bone is formed inside, even the slight padding of fat at the inside of his thigh over his pants.

By the time his attention redirects to what is actually _between_ his legs instead of every other part around it his cock is straining so hard against the fabric that wearing pants at all seems like just a formality. Folth finally slows down here, either shy or teasing now that he’s so close to the most intimate part of him, he can’t tell which. “I love you,” he breathes into his ear, and teasing or stalling, it gets another noise out of him, a sad little whimper.

He spends some time first tugging on his pubic hair and running his fingers through it, fingertips brushing into the base of his penis. Over and over, maddeningly close. His hips want to squirm upward to meet him in the chance that he’ll just touch him. “Folth... please.”

“But it’s so soft, right here. Silky.” He’s wide-eyed and innocent, like he has no idea what he’s doing. He’s teasing. Has to be. Isn’t he...? Or very good at playing off his timidity. “You don’t like it?”

Erst sighs loudly. If he thinks this is awkward to listen to, well... things are only going to get worse.

“Come on. We’re not teenagers sneaking around.”

“Ehhh. Ghift, how much do you know about sneaking around?” His hand, damn it all, stops entirely. There’s a start of something that might be jealousy in how still his face suddenly gets. The smile on it is just lingering in place.

That would be fun to play with later but right now he’s looking forward to a hand on his dick that isn’t his own. “Nothing! I’m just saying to stop pussy-footing.”

“That’s good. I saved myself all this time too, you know.”

Finally he grabs onto him, squeezes his hand firmly on the root of his shaft like a reward for saying the right thing, even though Ghift had only said it to move him along in doing what he wants. It could be that Folth is more sly than he gave him credit for. _He won me, after all_ \--he thinks, then stops. The rest of it was going to finish something like ‘so it’s his right to reward me’.

So instead of a toy, that would make Folth the master of their little two-man harem. Maybe they should fight it out all ways to see exactly who is on top of who.

“When did you start doing this to yourself?” He’s back to speaking right in his ear, softly, so his breath caresses his earlobe.

“Umm. Eight or nine. I think.” His voice lowers to as quiet as he can manage. Erst can probably still hear him, but at least this way he can pretend consideration for him.

“What to? Or do you not think of anything when you do it?” He begins a slow stroking motion. Ghift has the weird feeling it’s meant as encouragement.

“L-later. I’ll tell you later.” He’s still not ashamed of himself but there’s no point coming out with that now. In private he can at least see what kind of reaction Folth has to it. “Honest.”

“You can probably guess when for me. It was about a week after that, when I first tried to do it to myself.” He pauses a moment, his fingers squeezing around the frenulum, so tight it almost hurts, both of them hold their breath---then back up and down, a little faster. “I was in love with you both before that, but it was a child’s crush. Innocent. Even when I started touching myself, it was just in response to how it made my body feel. I didn’t start imagining until I actually started puberty a few years later.” When he stops the room is filled with an atmosphere of rapt attention. Other than that sigh Erst hasn’t acknowledged them in any way, but he knows he’s listening too, that pervert, waiting to hear how the little boy he used to know discovered himself.

Folth tells them conversationally about the fantasies he’s had, and Ghift tries not to come. In only a few minutes of being steadily handied his arousal is audibly evident in the room. The sound of his cock being jerked off with his own pre-come impresses him with a helpless inevitability. Even if he disliked this he still wouldn’t fight it. No one else is freaking out. And it’s nice to just... let go, give in. He’d like to give in and come too but he wants to hear everything Folth has to say without interruption.

He thinks of wrestling matches that go the way that one went, both as kids and adults, innocent exploration on one hand and a knowing game on the other, where winner takes all instead of ‘just one’. He likes to imagine both winning and losing these games, tying-up and being tied-up, spanking and being spanked, sucking anything put in his mouth, fingers, cock, an oversized lollipop that makes him drool all over himself, even toes if 'forced'. His fantasies of Erst are more reverent, with more of a need to prove himself. All grown-up, ready to show just _how_ grown-up. Or living together, married already and partaking in a little morning indulgence.

“You have a dirty mind,” he manages between attempts to control his breathing. As though his thoughts haven’t been just as bad or worse.

“I can’t wait to hear what you get off to.” He kisses right into his ear, little pecks that still make the inside pop. His palm covers his glans and squeezes and twists it like he’s working a damn orange juicer. The noise of wet flesh is even louder being squished like this. “I bet it puts me to shame.”

Not if Folth has thought the same things he has but can’t talk about due to current company.

Folth, twelve years old, fifteen, eighteen, touching himself in his bed at night thinking of his childhood hero taking advantage of him, here, baby, put my lollipop in your mouth and suck the poison out, such a doll, do you feel funny, let me help you where it hurts.

God, they’re both sick.

The idea is still extremely stimulating. The point of inevitability is rapidly on him, drawing up his balls and the sound gets even wetter, all thick and mucky, and Folth coos to him: do you like it? gonna come? gonna come on my hand? then he’s back to stroking him hard and quick until his entire waist is almost numb. What he does feel is a huge sense of pressure that builds---and releases. He gasps, trying not to yell out, and squirms in his sweaty pajamas, clutching onto Folth with one hand.

“Fuck!” he whisper-shouts. It won’t stop. Folth keeps pulling on his dick and he’s coming _so much_ , jet after jet to make up for all these years of longing. His thighs are about to seize up from trembling so hard for so long. “...fuck ogod, Folth!” Even when he’s trying to go soft he’s stroking him until the thick consistency of his semen degrades into a watery milk. He can’t muster up the strength to do more than pull on his shoulder to try to make him stop. And whimper mindlessly, sinking his dignity into the negatives.

Folth laughs softly between his teeth. “You’re so cute, Ghift. You make me want to eat you all up.” He finally unhands him before he tries to wiggle off the bed and they’re both a huge mess of sweat and spunk, sticking Ghift’s skin to his pants and clinging to Folth’s hand. “Do you want to clean me before I move on, or should I?”

He curls up onto his side like a shrimp. “Whatever. I hate you.” He might like sucking off their come, emotionally if not physically, but he knows his stuff is gross. Speaking of gross, a bath sounds super good now but he doesn’t want to miss a second of the second act. Erst is still staring at the wall like there’s something intensely interesting on it, but his hands aren’t capable anymore of hiding what’s going on beneath them.

“No, you don’t,” Folth replies in such a smug voice he’s tempted to deck him. He sticks his fingers in---the hand, really, at least halfway to the heel of the palm, and sucks on it so hard his cheeks form around the shape of his thumb and pinkie. An off-white drool starts dripping off his lower lip during this self-vacuuming. The sound of him doing it is so loud Erst jumps, maybe not as directly lewd as a dick getting jerked off, but it’s much sloppier. When he finally pulls it out it might technically be called ‘clean’ in the sense that there’s no more semen, but it’s covered in a layer of saliva anyway. Germy. ...but he hadn’t minded Folth’s germs before.

“Erst! Are you ready to start?”

Erst jumps again, then reluctantly turns. The effects of what they’ve been doing are obvious on him; he has bloomed, become alive, face flushed and skin lightly dewed, and his pupils are fat with want. His irises are golden slivers around them. “Folth, I’m... I don’t think...”

Folth leans toward his side of the bed now, showing the full view of his sweat-dappled back. “I want you. I want to touch you so bad.” His voice is needy, thick as molasses. “Don’t you want me too? Don’t you want me to touch you?” He grasps his knee, massaging it briefly before moving up where it disappears out of Ghift’s view, presumably his thigh. Erst makes a weird, choked noise. “This tells me you do...” Or something else.

Ghift begins to feel some concern. He can’t see much like this. And he’d like to enjoy as much of the view as possible. Folth, bless his heart, good boy, knows what needs to be done. He sits on Erst’s legs, allowing him a profile look at them both. So gorgeous it hurts. Their hands touch, Erst’s on top, as he attempts to keep him from feeling under his shirt.

“Ghift is watching,” he mumbles.

“So? He’s not five. And you’re still not touching.” As he speaks his crotch presses against him in slow little circles like he’s barely aware of it. Like he just wants him so bad he’ll take any stimulus at all. “I’m so hard it hurts. C’mon. You too, right...? Lemme help... I wanna help...”

Then they’re crashing into each other, biting lips and knocking noses, Folth lifting Erst’s shirt to rub his palms up his belly and Erst grabbing Folth’s ass so hard the bones of his knuckles and metacarpals stand out in a primal, masculine way. It’s violent compared to how it was between them, but maybe that’s what Erst needs to forget himself. It’s a nice look on both of them, honestly. They’re usually so nice, so easygoing; and so strong. He’d like to see them destroy each other with lovemaking.

Folth pulls his brother’s dick from his underwear (despite how gifted he is in most every other area of his life he’s not ridiculously-sized, maybe just a little bigger than him, but it has a mouth-watering color that graduates from flesh to red up the shaft that makes him wish so bad to be in Folth’s place) and treats it tender at first, careful exploratory touches for his new toy. The tip is already gleaming. Then instead of fucking it with one hand he grips it with both and slowly, forcefully squeezes up, then pulls back down, up, until Erst is again pulling at him, but not, this time, to make him stop.

Folth shakes his head and laughs like he’s really enjoying himself. Like it’s a game and they’re just wrestling again. “What? Do you want something?”

“After all the things you said---don’t tease!”

“Well, you seemed so reluctant. I thought I’d take it slow---ahahaha!”

Erst digs his fingers into his ribs and hauls him over, right into his previous bedspace, so close to Ghift he has to scooch to the edge so they don’t roll right into him. This close, he would barely have to reach out to touch him... he’s not sure Erst would even notice, now that they’re back to attacking each other. It’s all legs kicking and trying to pin one another, hips pushing and straining, hands in hair, a flurry of limbs in a struggle for dominance. There’s so much activity and noise with the mattress creaking it isn’t immediately obvious they’re growling. Just chest sounds from Folth, but Erst says a single word over and over, _tease_ , _tease_ , _tease_.

Finally he pins him, ankles on knees, wrists over his head. Ghift soaks in every detail of Folth in submission, the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and the expression on his face, hot but somehow demure like he had been while serving tea, and another man’s hard cock pressed flush into the inward curve of his belly.

They pause a moment, panting from grinning mouths like animals, not stop. Folth’s biceps or thighs visibly tense every few seconds. Testing. “What’re you gonna do to me, Mr. Summoner?”

“Make you live up to all your talk.” His eyes squeeze close like he’s too aware for a moment of what he’s saying and what he’s doing, but the horny wins out. “Be a good boy, Folth. Be good and help me get off, okay?”

Ghift swallows. A twitch goes off in his overly-sensitive dick. If his brother is so worried about not being a perv maybe he shouldn’t use the same cutesy language in bed.

It doesn’t seem to bother Folth any. “I’ll be good,” he promises. His back arches, pressing him further up into the cock on his belly. “I bet it’s been ages since you did it. How long has it been, Erst?”

“God, years... so just let me, okay? Please...”

Folth bites his lip and looks down between them as Erst readjusts so they are groin to groin. “Do you want my pants down?”

“No. I think my first time doing this will be easier with fabric.” He pushes himself into him a little, sliding his cock over cotton and the erection-tent of the hard-on inside. “And I want this easy. I don’t want to have to think, or work anything out.”

Folth hums and closes his eyes. A faint smile gives him a strangely serene air even as he is humped like an adolescent boy might use a sock or pillow. Soon the whole front of his pants is covered in sticky trails and spots of pre-come. “Are you going to finish on me?”

“Er, can I?”

He lifts his head enough to survey the state of his clothes. “May as well.”

“Thanks.” Permission given Erst redoubles his efforts, slamming against him so hard it doesn’t seem it should feel good from Folth’s side, and the bedframe starts insistently thumping into the wall. “Baby, I’m gonna come, I’m gonna come!”

“Please come on me, you use me so good---”

Ghift’s dick is starting to make a resurgence when a hammering sound on the other side of their wall almost makes him start off off the bed. There’s a shout of noise he can’t quite make out but he assumes it’s something like ‘quit fucking so loud’. Erst is too nice. His life is undoubtedly more important than whatever this pleb next door has going on, and as a matter of fact the pleb owes him his life. The least he can do is let him have an orgasm. But Erst is nice, and the sound obviously brings him back down to how he didn’t think he should be doing this anyway, and he begins to slow down.

Folth, who he expected to be on the asshole neighbor’s side, is actually a veritable angel and concurs. “Don’t stop,” he urges, arching his body back up into him, pulling his hands free from Erst’s slackened grip to hug him around his neck and pull him close. “Just get it done quick, count to ten, you can do it.”

Erst whimpers something that sounds like ‘I’m sorry’ and keeps humping like a rabbit, a teen boy, did he ever fuck his hand as hard as he’s trying to fuck Folth through his pants right now? The hammering on the other side of the wall continues but Ghift does his part by slamming back with the palm of his hand; “Give us a minute in here!” Then, quieter, “Big brother, you’re going to get us thrown out if you don’t hurry.”

Erst hugs Folth back before going rigid and finally, thank god, starts quivering all over so hard even his feet are twitching. He makes a few loud, soblike noises. Ghift watches Folth’s hands relax, then soothingly rub into his back and hair. He’s not sure exactly how long his brother comes; he keeps quivering for a while, but at some point he switches from painting Folth’s front white to crying.

After a few minutes Folth turns his head a little, speaking against the side of Erst’s head. “You needed that, huh?”

Erst manages a slurry ‘yesh’ sound. A little longer and he sits up, rubbing at his eyes. He looks down at himself, dick out, his own spunk plastered and sticking to him, the thickest parts of it turning his shirt sheer. “God, I’m disgusting.”

“We can all use a bath,” Ghift says carefully. Must be stress, or the physical shock of having an orgasm after a long time without one. “Do you want to go first?”

“Sure, that’d be great...” He hesitates for a moment; politeness is obviously crossing his mind, that he should give the lead to the guy who came in his pants, but that would mean acknowledging that his brother came in his pants.

Folth sits up. “I’ll go with him.”

“Oh... okay.”

And so it was that on their first night together as a trio, Ghift sat in bed waiting in his crustifying pants while his brother and best friend wash clean and finish off the last of them that needs it; a few minutes in and he hears Folth moaning softly, then one loud warbly cry before a few tired giggles. Before he’d have felt spitting mad, and to be honest a little jealousy still niggles at him. He wasn’t the first one to touch Folth like that. But he is too pleased with how things went tonight to bother much, and he was the first one to get touched by Folth, so he’ll call it even. 

And after the way he was at the end maybe Erst needs the self-confidence boost of jerking a guy to climax.


	28. Chapter 28

Their dynamic continues uninterrupted for a few more days until they return to Folth’s house so he can go back to work soon. In that time if he wants Folth, he can reach out his arm for a kiss, his hand, his mouth. He cannot have Erst yet but he only allows them together when he is close by so he can imagine appropriately. Folth is shared constantly between them (though it is perhaps more like Folth has his pick of the two of them) with the fervor of three young men in a sense undergoing late adolescence. Every sexual thought and urge none of them have ever been able to act on explodes.

Except for actual sex, in the penetrative sense. None of them try that, yet; he senses they are waiting for someplace more secure for it. Losing one’s virginity in an inn room seems paltry and stifled in terms of freedom and ease. There’s the noise issue, too. They haven’t had anyone hammering on their wall since but they’ve had to make a concentrated effort to keep things quiet, which is no fun.

He discovers Folth _is_ noisy, but in a different way than he suspected. He’s less moany and more talkative and giggly. Erst is the moany one.

There are only a few hiccups. Erst is still extremely reluctant to touch Folth with Ghift anywhere close by. Folth scared the daylights out of him during oral once by sneezing and grazing his teeth into him. Once he lost his feet in the shower and bruised his ass for a few days. (Both of these last two things occurring during showers for easy clean-up, he has since been wary of doing anything in a bathtub).

But at least while showering together they are guaranteed some privacy. He confides to Folth the truth of his feelings for his brother and his earliest experiences with eroticism, anxiously waiting the whole time he speaks for some kind of reaction.

Folth listens silently; hard to interpret one way or the other. He nods seriously after, and says, “If Erst was my brother, I’m sure I’d still feel the same way,” like it’s the most natural thing in the world that anyone could be attracted to Erst, even his own blood relative. It makes his life easier so he can’t complain.

Going ‘home’ and settling in is like the end of a dream; for just a while he had been concerned with nothing but themselves and he knows he cannot be satisfied being a househusband. For one thing, he doesn’t have the skill for it. The question of what to do with himself lingers uneasily in the back of his mind. Even if he finds something, he’s not sure he’ll be allowed to do it.

Even when Folth is technically back on the job, things are so peaceful after their skirmish he doesn’t need to leave often. There’s no privacy for another week with Kagerou around and the way he keeps eyeballing him says he has some idea what’s going on. Folth starts insisting that his ‘cute little brother’ go to art classes and other part-time activities to get him out of the house. “He’s a little dependant,” Folth says fondly. “Ever since we met we’ve been with each other 24/7.” Erst could have learned a little from an attitude like that.

“You must like a lot of the same things,” Erst remarks.

“Yeah, we do... but I do worry he’ll miss out on parts of his own life since he hates being away from me. He was really good at our school art classes but he stopped going when I did.”

Ghift watches them leave out the window. Kagerou still hates not being home in case there’s trouble (”I can summon you near me whenever I want,” Folth says, smooshing his cheeks) but maybe it’s not personal, after all. “They’re very... brotherly.”

“Yeah, they were like that when I first met Kagerou too.”

Way back since then… “Were you and Gaudi like that, too?”

“Nah. Close, but, buddies, you know.”

When Folth isn’t here Erst goes up to hide out in the spare bedroom set aside for him. More and more, he does that even when he is here. He senses in his brother an even greater restlessness than the one inside him, an anxiety that, without a definite solution, will continue forever. When he is down here he drifts from room to room like something out of place. He looks like he is looking for something without knowing what it is. Ghift can sense him readying to leave again this moment, if there is nothing else to say between them.

“I’m jealous of them, honestly.” The words come out calmly enough if he focuses on saying them, but the admission makes his heart pound like mad. Erst looks up from his clasped hands toward him, surprised but also not. “We never got along like that for long. And they’re happy to be glued at the hip all day.”

Erst shakes his head, looks down again. At this point it feels like he’s actively looking for a way to leave now, but Ghift sits beside him, facing toward him.

“You don’t want to kill me ‘for my own good’ anymore?”

“Not so long as you’re not doing the Nether thing.”

“Do you still resent me?”

“No,” he answers, quick but not glib-sounding.

“...what were things like for you as an only child?” He had been able to understand their parents' distance when he learned what they are. But as someone who hated their bloodline with all his heart, his brother never had that comfort. He’d never considered it before. He’s not sure if the fact that he’s doing so now is a development in his selfish personality, or if he’s simply an adult capable of looking at things more roundly.

Erst looks at him in a flat, suspicious way he supposes he deserves, then it eases out into neutrality. “It’s weird to talk about. I mean, I never felt like I could go to the school counselor, the police, whatever. Even then I knew others had it worse. They weren’t beating me, touching me, or anything like that. Kids who were going through that would probably be grateful to be ignored. But it always felt that as long as I was alive, and followed on their path, they didn’t care one way or another about anything I did or who I was.”

He tries his hardest to imagine it. He’d gotten a little taste of it after Erst left, but he still had Folth to play with most days. “You always did well in school that I remember. Surely they preferred that to the alternative.”

“If they did, I never knew it. I think I could have dropped out entirely, picked up a habit, and they wouldn’t have cared.” Erst sighs and stretches out like a starfish, arms along the cushions, butt almost over the edge of the seat. “Even when I fought with them about that, it was like yelling at a wall. They’d stare, and listen… and again, they’d close me off. Before I knew it I had a sibling on the way.” His voice turns wistful, then his eyes softly unfocus like he’s gazing into the past at the swaddled infant that was eventually brought home. “A little brother. I wasn’t even a teenager yet, but I thought, I can make things different for him. He’ll know someone loves and cares about him.”

His hand is next to Ghift’s shin, laying on its back with the fingers slightly curled, like an insect husk. The nails are down to the quick, little white and pink-tinged squares biting into the inflamed edge of skin. Ghift takes it one hand, crossing palm on palm, and Erst’s fingers tighten in return.

“But whatever my intentions, I was a kid, and even when you were a toddler you cried a lot, like there was something I wasn’t able to give you. Mom and dad wanted me to leave you alone if you weren’t hungry or needed changing, and it made me mad because I knew they did the same thing to me. For a week I could play martyr while you cried during my school nights, and in the early morning. Then reality set in, and you never stopped. Even when you got older you still wanted my attention all the time.”

“...for what it’s worth, I never felt lonely with you. I loved you a lot. So I hated it when you left, because it felt like you didn’t love me.”

“Weird how things get all mixed-up, huh? I meant what I said before, though.” He smiles, still staring out to nothing, so gently that Ghift’s heart overflows with yearning. To be with him and touch him, not just as his brother, but as a lover, like he is with Folth. “I do love you.”

“Erst.” His throat clicks. “Are you happy with how things are right now?”

“With Folth?” Not ‘us’. “Yeah. He’s grown into a fine young man. And I guess this is one way to end the Brattern bloodline.” At least he’s not calling him a good boy again, but it’s still weird, the proud tone of voice. Is he just overly sensitive to it?

“He’d be happy to hear you say so,” he says, with a bit of a bite he can’t quite keep out of his words. It’s easy not to be jealous concerning Folth, since he can have him too. Erst is something else.

Erst side-eyes him, then sits up, pulling his hand away from his. “You said it didn’t bother you.”

Crap. Sidetrack! Anything but the incest. “It doesn’t, but I’m still human. You two always seemed so close. I’d feel… a little jealous of you two, too, sometimes.”

Erst lifts his eyebrows, and miraculously looks like this is news to him. “Because he liked me?”

Yes. That is definitely, completely it. “From a brotherly standpoint. You two acted like brothers more than you and I most of the time. Sometimes I thought you’d rather have him instead.”

“Hey, it’s nice to have someone actually act like he likes me for once. Sue me.”

“You had a billion friends!”

“I barely knew them.” He snorts softly. “And most of them only liked me for my popularity. Even the actually nice ones I couldn’t let know much about me. And Folth was so sweet… like a little angel. I’d never had anyone look up to me like that.”

Still, his brother had made a genuine friend at some point, to make a Summon into his Cross. As sad as it probably is, while he understands that Gaudi is well and truly dead, he doesn’t want to hear more about it. “I didn’t know my brother was such a cynic. Or such a pervert.”

“What are you trying to imply?”

“Nothing! I just think it’s weird to use a kid for your praise fetish---”

Erst crashes into him, pinning his spine back against the rounded curve of the arm so close so warm Ghift barely restrains his first instinct to pull at the neck of his coat, pull it off, bare him for him, and instead holds onto his arm. Erst is glowering at him, but not like he wants to murder him in this living room, so he’ll take it as a good sign at least.

“You’re always such a brat. Was this why the whole time? Because you were _jealous_? Of my classmates? Of Folth?”

Yes, please figure it out. If he can do that, maybe he can realize what he wants. “Don’t start pinning things on me because I don’t fall over myself to kiss your feet.”

“Ghift, if you don’t shut up---”

“Or what, you’ll noogie me again?” At this rate he won’t be able to help getting hard. The heat from his body is boring into him. “But I can be a good little brother for you if you want.”

So much. He’d give up what little else he has in his life just to kiss him. He takes his face in his hands instead, just holding, trying not to caress, and puts on a voice so sweet it is foreign to his ears. “Big brother, I love you! You’re the best brother in the whole world! You’re so cool and handsome and nice---”

Erst scowls and pulls away, but not before his face turns a lovely shade of pink. “It’s really weird to hear you talk like that.”

 _Get in my bed and I’ll talk to you like that all you want_. Clearly he likes it. Perv. “Oh, so you like it from Folth, but not from me?”

“Folth means it. It’s a huge difference.”

“You know I don’t hate you, right? It’s just embarrassing catering to your praise complex or whatever it is.”

They’re on each other, mutually now that he’s expecting it, and if he was Folth this would be foreplay to sex but he isn’t so all he can do is concentrate on fighting back. When Folth comes back they’ve tumbled themselves off the couch and halfway across the room into a tie, Ghift on top but unable to do much besides make faces with his elbows captured.

During the night they sleep in the same bed with Folth, who’s single bed has been replaced with a double; the biggest size that the room itself will accommodate. The spare room is available (‘it might get too hot in the summer’ Folth reasons) but here is where they stay most nights even if it means being crammed together like sardines, the one they share always between them like an anti-incest barrier. The bed has only been used for sleeping, like their lives in general since putting themselves back together have gotten more sexless. Little time, little room, little privacy.

Tonight they have planned for things to be different. Kagerou is staying at a friend or whatever’s of Folth’s, to broaden his experiences, new perspectives, and so on and so forth. Kagerou struggled and argued all the way out the door, like it’s a kid they’re trying to have babysat instead of a nearly-grown boy. He wonders how much he knows. Folth has been a little more antsy than usual throughout the day, would that tell him anything?

Ghift hangs by near the kitchen during Folth’s ‘special’ meal-preparation. All of Folth’s cooking is special, so he can’t imagine to what lengths he’s going. It smells like good fish, mouth-wateringly buttery, more delicate than steak or rib. “How much does your Summon know about what you’re doing, at any given moment?”

“His name is Kagerou. It depends. We don’t _have_ to be open to each other, but even when it’s on, it’s not like, exact thoughts.”

“So he doesn’t actually know anything about what you’re doing at night, right?”

“No! If I wasn’t busy I’d go out there and beat you.” He’s laughing between his words, like the suggestion is so gross to him laughing at it is all he can do with it. “We grew up together. We know how to be private.”

He hangs around a little longer. He wishes he could watch; surprises don’t interest him much, and it is fascinating to watch him cook, working, really, since there always seems to be five different things to do at once and alien utensils to do them with. It was watching mastery in action, something he never thought about deeply for anything besides fighting. Could Ghift do something like that? Make a career of it? No. Watching Folth’s expertise brought no interest in improving his own skills, or any love for the culinary arts. It was not something he could make into his new goal.

Dinner turns out to be pink slabs of smoked salmon crusted in walnuts, with a side of a carrot slaw dotted with black pepper and thin slices of scallion. The beverage of the evening is a lightly chilled white wine, with a refreshing cut of lime, followed by a fluffy round of cheesecake for dessert. The lights are low. They eat mostly in silence after some compliments to the chef, first for presentation then taste. There’s a mood to it, like this is also foreplay. It is dragging out the anticipation. A bottle shared three ways normally wouldn’t get him anywhere but his limbs get a little heavier as he drinks, his mind a little more swimmy.

Even after the meal there is more minutiae to handle. Dishes to put away to soak. Folth takes a quick shower even though Ghift doesn’t mind that he smells like smoke and sugar. He and Erst wash hands and faces, change for bed. In the morning they will really, truly be lovers. In the morning he will have that fact in his head, and it will make him feel more docile, more relaxed than usual, while he watches Folth tidy-up for the day so he can steal his aftershave. Palmarosa. Already he knows it will shift something inside him.

They wait in the bedroom, still silent, Erst absently squeezing his fingers into his bicep. The tension mounts. It’s easy by now to imagine him wet and naked when he’s seen it so many times. Why couldn’t he have washed after cooking, just a quick step in the tub?

Steam is still wafting off him when he joins them in the room, like he hadn’t bothered to dry off. They fumble for him; it is dark here too, lit only by moonlight from the window. Ghift feels a forearm, cups a buttcheek. Yes. Completely wet. He gets into his place between them and parts of the sheet are wet through already but it’s exciting too, his slippery smooth skin out of the bathroom.

Erst kisses his cheek, a few minutes away from being an iced peach. “You’ll catch a cold.”

“You should warm me up, then.” It’s said more as a suggestion than a challenge, but there’s no other way to take it.

“...who’s going first?” Erst asks, forcing the situation back into a more contained, sensible space, even though the obvious intent was for them both to have at him and warm his skin with kisses and hands everywhere until their bodies decided the order and position for them, and he knows now Folth is on his side so if in tending to him they maybe accidentally met with each other’s mouths and bodies instead, he’d surely be happy to warm himself up watching.

“There’s a coin we can flip with on my bedside table.”

“Why do we need to flip? I’m the first boyfriend.”

“I’m not going after you unless I have to,” Erst says dryly, and can you really say you love a man if you won’t fuck him after another man has been inside him?

“Well... you can call it, Ghift. What do you want?”

“Tails.”

The coin is retrieved from the nightstand. They press against Folth expectantly on either side, eyes unblinking on the little scrap on metal balanced on his thumbnail. It flips, comes up higher than head height; their eyes follow; it lands on the back of his hand.

“Heads.”

Ghift sits and grumbles at the side of the bed. He should have known that a game of chance would favor his brother.

They stare at each other a moment before kissing, as though sizing up before they get started onto something that neither of them has any comparable experience in. He half-expects one of them to call chicken. It won’t be too late until they actually try. But they kiss for now, sweetly, with gentle touches as Folth is drawn into Erst’s chest. Erst kneads his shoulders, ribs, thighs, and his shivering stops as gradually as it starts. They look cozy and warm together, like they don’t have an audience. There’s enough hesitance when they start changing position that they are immediately marked as new to it. 

Erst is leaned back into the pillows, the skin of his leg only a few inches away. He has never felt so close before. Folth straddles his thighs with careful movements to make sure his knees are in the right place, and all he has is eyes for him, just as he is the only one being gazed at in return.

“You’ve never been with anyone else, right?”

He shakes his head. “I’ve done a little with my fingers. But I always thought I’d rather it be a little uncomfortable, than have anything really inside me that wasn’t you or him.” He smiles a little. “That sounds silly, huh?”

Ghift nods along. It was like that for him, too.

“I wouldn’t have minded if one of us knew what they were doing. Because I don’t. Buuut I appreciate the thought.”

“We should start with lube I guess. I have some in the nightstand...”

He starts looking without needing to be asked. He can be helpful. Nothing on top but a lamp, tissue box, and an alarm clock (for all the good it probably does), second drawer is tiny and contains nothing but medicinal odds and ends for pain, nausea, most unopened or barely used, just in case essentials. The bigger lower drawer is the lube drawer, and apparently only the lube drawer. It’s the only thing inside.

Ghift picks it up. It’s about the size of a shampoo bottle, and _actually_ sex lubricant, according to the bold declaration written on it, not just massage oil. “Did you go into a store to buy this?”

“Um... yeah? Where else?”

Death sounds preferable to letting on that he has never been able to talk himself into doing the same thing. No matter how hard he tries to not care the idea of some stranger knowing he jerks off is harrowing. “For tonight?” Right. Maybe it’s because this is a special occasion.

“Yeah, but not really. I’ve been getting them regular since I turned eighteen. It just feels better than spit and pre, you know?”

…

The tube is opened. Kind of also like a shampoo bottle, it squirts out what looks like a tiny dollop of the stuff in Folth’s palm---far less than the amount he uses to wash his hair, even when it was short. Is it really enough? Maybe he shouldn’t say anything. He uses more massage oil than that for himself, too, for whatever it’s worth, but maybe lubricant is more efficient.

But Folth shows his palm to Erst. “Think this’ll do?”

Erst looks. “More is probably better. That amount is fine for masturbating, but it stands to reason you need more for more, right?”

...!?

The world is a terrible, unfair place because his best friend and brother have gone into stores (or ordered? he _truly_ cannot see Erst in such a place) and purchased sexual lubricant, a step of grown-up maturity he hadn’t even known until now he was missing out on. Tomorrow, he’ll find out where the nearest one is.

Erst sticks his thumbs under the waistband of his trunks and pulls them down past his hips. His cock is half-hard but agreeable. Folth strokes it with the stuff on his palm, from the base of the shaft to the head, where Erst’s breathing stutters every time he spreads it right over the cleft with feigned casualness. It transforms beautifully as it stiffens, what he would do just to have his hand on it; Folth is a lucky man. Even pink to red color throughout, not huge or even much bigger than they are, but thick with a nice swell to the shaft with a defined head. And now all gleaming, sticky-wet.

“I love you,” Folth says reverently, staring at it as openly as Ghift wishes he could (he sneaks his looks by glances, between the one he’s allowed to look at). “And I love your dick. I love touching it, sucking it---I can’t wait to have it in me.”

Erst’s face softens, radiates love and want and lanquidity, absorbing the words being spoken to him. “Just take it slow, okay?” The bottle of lube is his now. He coats it onto his fingers and leads Folth higher up his body, sitting now on his belly and in easy reach. They ease right into him, one, two, three, slow and careful, hard to believe even seeing it that his brother’s big, strong fingers can fit in that tiny pink spot. “Is this much alright?”

Folth doesn’t respond immediately. His lower body moves in thoughtful little circles. “Your fingers are bigger than mine, so it’s a bit tight. But it doesn’t hurt.”

“Yeah? I can feel it. You’re tense.” His fingers switch from the in-out motion to more of a pulling one, like he’s trying to stretch out a rubber band. Every time he does it exposes just a glimpse of Folth’s insides, something dark red but too shadowed in this dim light to really see. “You really think I’ll fit?”

“I’ll be very disappointed if you can’t.” There’s a similar terseness in his voice that underlies his light words and gives them truth: if it doesn’t work out he will be devastated. “I’ve been wanting this for years, after all.”

They get back into place, Folth hovering above Erst’s cock, still-damp thighs quivering. He lowers slowly, with all due gravitas, murmuring a word of thanks when Erst strokes his hip in encouragement, as though he’s a horse that needs calming. But Ghift sees the idea. He starts in the same, palm then fingers brushing down his arm, back, leg, the same hands he once tried to murder him with to prove himself, feasting on the experience as much as he can from his third-place position. His other hand sneaks into his briefs so he can feel even closer.

The tip (fat, pink, perfect) presses against the buttonhole of flesh and it’s not just Folth that’s tense, it’s all three of them, waiting expectantly to see what will happen. Then, as if there was no resistance at all, it is swallowed in—just the tip, but the widest part, and they all sigh in relief. That potential crisis out of the way, Ghift continues fondling himself. They go slowly the rest of the way too, to be careful no doubt, but if it were him it’d be to savor it. You only get fucked, or fuck someone, for the first time once. As hard as he tries he can’t really imagine how it feels.

When it is all entered Folth laughs, tired, giddy, and they remain like that for longer yet, breathing deep. “It feels strange,” he says finally.

“It still doesn’t hurt?”

“No. But… it doesn’t feel good, either. Except, it’s satisfying? To be this full. I’m not sure how to put it...”

Erst frowns. “If it doesn’t feel good...”

Ghift feels the need to interject his own insight. “Masturbation is usually nothing special at first, too. Maybe he needs to warm up to it.”

His brother doesn’t dignify him with a response but Folth nods. “You’re probably right. Is it good for you, Erst?”

“Huh? Er… yeah. You’re,” his voice lowers suddenly, embarrassed, and Ghift’s skin crawls with the knowledge that he is trying very hard not to acknowledge him with them, “amazing, Folth,” even though there’s no point when he’s going to see him emptying himself into him soon.

Sex is a strange thing to watch from the outside. They are so close to him but so lost in each other they may as well be distant images at the end of some long dusty road. Their mounting pleasure buzzes in his skin but he can’t truly feel it, even touching himself. It begins to make him a little lonely, something he’d rectify with a kiss, but he’s not sure how welcome it would be right now, even by Folth.

The faint tinge of that loneliness makes his arousal very weird to experience, as it mounts with Folth’s; eventually he has to stop both because he’s going to come in his hand at this rate and if there is anything sadder than jerking off while feeling lonely, he doesn’t want to know it.

Folth is still a beauty to watch. His drying hair feathers around his cheeks and crescent moon eyelids as he huffs and giggles during first a slow roll of the hips, to and fro, back and forth, then as he beats his ass back into Erst’s pelvis. His skin gleams again, sweating. There’s still a grace to him; watching him feels less smutty than it should.

Erst is content to allow himself to be used. He makes no reciprocated thrusting against him, and does not pull or grip except to simply touch. A toy. His throat outpaces Folth’s though, and he tries not to let it, holding in his noises until they explode out and make him sound whiny and sweet. His body he attempts to keep just as subdued but it is hard to miss the clenching of his toes and his popped nipples, and the pleasure Folth is only starting to come to is the level he’s been experiencing the whole time.

He gives up. “I’m sorry, Folth. I’m gonna come.”

“Go ahead. I wanna see if I can feel it.”

Their movements become stilted for a moment in their wiggling, pause, then explode again with breathing and _I love you_. The pause extends what feels like five, ten, fifteen seconds, and Erst melts into the sheets. He paws and rubs on Folth’s body like an overly-affectionate drunk. “I love you,” he says in a tone Ghift has never heard before, a purr, “that was great. You’re so good...”

Folth leans forward to embrace him and kiss his face. The cock plugging him up becomes soft enough to slide out, and with it, a whole cavalcade of milk down his butt and thighs. “I’m all filled-up.” If that’s what comes out, there must be so much more inside. A whole tummyful of milk.

He really wants to feel that too. Inside his own belly. Someone else’s, his brother’s, semen around his dick in his best friend’s insides, the best kind of sloppy seconds. To fill up. He can’t wait anymore.

What he’s doing goes unnoticed while they busy themselves with each other. He takes up the discarded lube bottle and squirts a healthy dollop into his hand; it really is more efficient, the same amount does so much more and it goes on smoother, too, coating evenly without feeling tacky or nasty. He takes up an awkward position between his brother’s legs, behind Folth, before they finally pay attention to him again.

Erst’s word is ‘no’ but Folth’s is ‘ _Ghift_ ’ and who is he going to listen to?

Entering him is easy, with the lube and sperm and how much he wants him, and it is better than he could have imagined, the tight wet heat and spunk. And the view. That alone might make him come too soon before he’s properly had a taste. Erst’s face with Folth’s, practically cheek to cheek. Then Folth says ‘wait', not ‘stop’, so he waits. “I want to try something while I’m in the middle.”

Now he’s lubricating himself, from the bottle and the motions; Ghift can’t see from where he is what all he’s doing, but Erst’s eyes crack open again. “Folth...”

“Is it okay? Can I?”

“Isn’t it too much?” he whispers. “With the three of us?”

“It’s alright. I’m here. Just look at me.”

He can’t see much of this part either, though he’d dearly love to. He hears Folth’s soft reassurances as he helps him draw his legs up, and the fleshy messy noises of his fingers working while Erst tries (and fails) even harder than before to be quiet. Folth encourages him there, too: let it out, let it all out. You’re so cute, so good, so responsive. When he grabs his legs under his knees and pushes into him, they both cry out.

The pace is hard to manage, either him or Folth slipping out, mostly him, but that’s fine since it helps him last longer. Erst’s eyes are squeezed shut again, the only way he can act like his brother isn’t watching him take his first dick and loving it, because he absolutely cannot shut up. It’s making his ears ring and he’s not even the one right next to his mouth. Folth cannot pay him much attention while he’s holding onto Erst’s legs but every now and again he looks back at him and smiles.

When the rhythm is right it feels like fucking Erst through Folth. He thrusts into Folth as he thrusts into Erst, he moans and whimpers, and he can stare at his face and imagine he’s the one gripping his legs and forcing him to make all these slutty noises.

He shouldn’t be imagining things like that because he wants to last long enough to fuck Folth into a puddle but every time he tries to stop to catch his breath he starts whining for him, please please please, which he can’t say no to without feeling like less of a man. If he had the time and the stamina... the things he’d do to him... all the things he’s ever imagined, finally, missionary, and doggy and sideways and standing until neither of them can think straight---alas, the desire to blow like a teapot is rising ominously inside him. He will not last hours and hours and though Folth seems to be close to the edge too by how much he keeps squeezing on him, he does not feel like he won. Folth lasted two men without coming, and Erst is making the most of his second wind.

Luckily, he is not the first to crack. Unluckily, his brother beats him out by being the star of the session.

Erst throws his arms around Folth’s neck and almost sobs when he speaks, the real crybaby between them, “Please don’t stop, don’t stop, I’m gonna come,” and Folth looks appropriately awed before giving him his full attention.

“Again?” he asks. You can hear him grinning ear-to-ear in his voice. Erst nods furiously.

They disintegrate.

It’s too much. He tries to keep up his end of the pace but Erst is Erst and Folth between them and the heat of being close and in love, the heartache of being so close and in love, the dirty-talking between Folth’s own rising whimpers and breathless gasps of what might still be laughter, and he feels him come too, tight and clenching in strong pulls like he’s trying to suck him off with his asshole, but he’s stumbling on too. For Erst.

Climax hits so hard it gives him vertigo. He has to lean forward over Folth’s back to keep his balance. Their eyes meet, he and his brother’s; he can’t help it and he doesn’t think Erst can either. He’s finally quiet with whatever is running through him, though his mouth is open like he would keep on if his lungs would work. Love is so strong in him, like it always has been, even when he hated and envied him. Because he loves him, he has felt those things.

He kisses him.

His brother’s lips, soft but firmer than Folth’s, his tongue, his teeth, the taste of his saliva and breath, still a little bitter with alcohol. The response is immediate. Erst scrabbles and pushes on his shoulder, then sets one of his fists in his hair, close to the scalp, and yanks. The pain is negligible. His brother, his brother he had worshiped as perfect as a child. He loves him now for his faults too, as Folth loves him for his.

Teeth come down hard on him. He pulls away as much as he can with the fist still in his hair, and tastes the blood already welling from his scraped tongue. He swallows.

“What the fuck?” Erst croaks. He releases his hair, and pushes off again. He’s already squirming away from them both. “What the fuck is wrong with you?”

“Brother, listen...” He’s not sure what he wants him to listen to, or what excuse he can come up with? Orgasm high made him irrational? Truth be told, he can’t really bother himself for one. Things are as they seem. He does carefully disengage himself from Folth’s body, before speaking further. Seems polite. “I told you how I feel.” _You just took it the wrong way._

“How you---I’m not listening to this.” He sits up and swings his legs over the edge, then almost stumbles getting up. His poor legs must be so weak.

“Erst---brother, this is really no big deal.” He wants to tell him what he has always known; they are Brattern, above the considerations of normal people. But he knows it would only anger his brother more. “I promise it isn’t. And if you want the Brattern blood to end so badly, isn’t this the most romantic way to do it? The most fitting?” If either of them had a womb in their male bodies he’d gladly impregnate them, or allow himself to be impregnated, but in the absence of that possibility...

His brother is brave, but he is a coward too. He leaves him wordlessly, running away, the same way he ran away from home, from their family, from their lineage. It is exasperating, but he loves him for this too. He must be steadfast for the both of them.

“You shouldn’t have done that,” Folth says quietly after the bedroom door slams shut. They lay together, and under him the sheets are warm and moist with Erst’s back sweat, with a bigger wet spot under his butt. The shower turns on down the hall. “But I’ll talk to him in the morning, when he’s a little calmer.”

“Sure, you’re right. He likes you more anyway.”

“Ghift,” Folth says, and it’s an amazing night when he can make even Folth sound annoyed.


	29. ハァハァハァ

A few days of cold hell pass. Folth mediates as best he can, but the truth, as he has it, is that he’s right to be angry. It would have been so much easier to talk things out properly! Ghift agrees out loud that he had been reckless to do such a thing, inconsiderate, but it is easier to ask forgiveness than permission. If they had talked things out, Erst might still hate him, and he wouldn’t even have a kiss to show for it.

For whatever it is worth, he tried to be a grown-up and ask for that forgiveness himself, at a time when he thought Erst might have calmed down a little. He attempted to convey his feelings clearly---I love you more than a brother and I always have. Erst ignores him as well as their parents did so for all his hatred of them he obviously picked up a thing or two. He extends the wait time to a week. He will be patient. There is no one for him to talk to outside this building. He’ll have to crack eventually.

He cannot be a teenager again, hiding and sleeping away in his room.

Finally, the frost begins to melt. Not for him, of course; for Folth, and Kagerou.

It isn’t that they go out of their way to try and make him cheer up, but they are what Ghift has never been able to be; unfailingly kind and warm, no matter what mood they’re up against. Kagerou in particular he seems to almost-smile around more, perhaps because he is a Summon, or a Cross, or because it’s hard to rebuff the affection of someone who used to dislike you. Or maybe he is responding to being believed in; Folth forcing Kagerou to go out into the world more might have had an effect on him, but it’s more likely he simply relaxed enough to trust them not to turn Folth into a goop monster when he’s not around.

So it is that within the next few weeks they, just the three of them, are completely normal around each other. They talk at the table and Folth and Erst are back to bedding each other again. Folth speaks normally to him still, and Kagerou begins to in little ways, requests, goodday, goodnight. But Erst has not spoken a single word to him that he doesn’t need to, and he won’t touch Folth around him either.

Finally they have a night to the three of them, Kagerou again shipped off, this time for a while to try a part-time job in the Maetropa colony to see how he takes to living by himself. If he was him, he thinks he’d be glad to go. They keep pretty quiet at night but there’s no way he doesn’t know.

Another awkward dinner. By the end of it Folth has decided they need to ‘be grown-ups and communicate’, which sounds like something someone says passive-aggressively during an argument, but is completely reasonable coming from Folth. ‘Communication’ is a word that makes him want to groan just hearing it, but if they’ve gotten this far doing it, maybe they can move past this too.

He believes, knows, they will, one way or the other. He’s a romantic. And something in this life has to work out for him.

“I don’t know what there is to talk about.” Erst speaks in a tone that is perfectly civil, perfectly cold.

“When Ghift tried to suck your face,” Folth helpfully clarifies. They’re all sitting around the table, so they can all see each other. Erst is still studiously ignoring him; the few times he does glance in his direction it is a very flat sidelong look. Folth’s game face is on. It’s the same way he looked when he tried to take him in. Some odd mix of serious and cheerful, like everything will be fine. “We need to talk about it.”

Nobody volunteers to start.

Folth sighs. “It shouldn’t have happened like that. If we were going to talk about it at all, I’d rather it have been like this, instead of something to spring on you.”

Comprehension dawns in his eyes. “You mean you knew? How long?” The dawning turns into more of a blazing. His fingers tighten on the table edge. “You knew something like that and didn’t tell me?”

“I only knew a little while. And it’s not something one lightly brings up, in any case. And we were getting along so well... and we had that night together, until it ended...”

Erst finally looks at him head-on. His face is set in a dark, clouded expression, that his eyes glitter in. “You, then. How long?” He’s definitely getting into ‘big brother’ mood. The old scold is in his voice. It’s cute, but annoying in what positions it is obviously trying to force.

He answers upfrontly. “For about as long as I can remember. Just as Folth loved the both of us, I loved the both of you.”

Erst makes a little moue with the pretty mouth he loves so much. “How could you even know that? You were just a child.”

“How could I _help_ loving you? You practically set me up for a brother-complex, taking care of me like that.” He understands that hadn’t been the intention in looking after him, but the fact remains that his early childhood was filled only with his brother’s presence. 

“Set you up? I was throwing you at people every chance I had.” He looks to Folth with a helpless ‘see what I have to put up with?’ shake of the head. “You don’t support this, do you? You can’t.”

“Well... I honestly don’t think it matters too much. You’re both grown. You can’t even procreate. And we’d only get along better.”

He’s smart enough to see all the sense in that... but he shakes his head again. “It’s still incest,” he says, the only thing he can say, even though it barely matters for the just-stated reasons. “It’s wrong.”

Ghift leans forward, never minding the way his brother’s eyes swivel on him. His brother, as an existence, stands out clear to him. Kind, intelligent, and from what he’s gathered, a brave warrior; but a coward still where his personal life is concerned. He couldn’t even accept Folth until he was nearly forced on him. “Are you disgusted because you really feel that way? Or because you think you should be?”

“They’re the same thing. This is how any normal person feels.”

“None of us are normal. Hurry up and acknowledge it already.” He reaches for his elbow, gently holding on; Erst winces, but does not pull away. “You told me to give Folth a try once, a long time ago. Why don’t you give _me_ a try?” It isn’t in his nature to speak soothingly, to coax, but he does his best now, remembering the way Folth had carried him along on this gentle but unmovable tone. “I love you, with all my heart. My entire life was based around how much I love you. You and Folth mean everything to me. Please... it can be our little secret.”

Erst’s complexion turns increasingly wan, but he looks between them, and finally there are no more words.

This night it is he and his brother on one side, Folth on the other, watching solemnly. Erst keeps looking at him like he’s hoping he’ll say something, put a stop to things and ‘this isn’t right’, something useless like that. It might bother him at another time but he’ll let him have whatever he needs to steady himself for now.

He busies himself in the reality of his brother; what might be otherwise called foreplay, but is just self-indulgence on his part. Erst’s hair curls softly around his fingers when he strokes it, and the bone of his jaw stands out cleanly against the skin. “You can’t imagine,” he murmurs, “how long I’ve wanted to touch you like this.”

“Ghift...” It doesn’t matter that he’s looking at him to frown. Like always, all that matters is that he’s _looking_. “This can’t... I’m...”

“Scared? It’s alright. I’m right here.”

He’s wearing a nightshirt again, an old faded thing that must belong to Folth. It makes him look more like the teenager he’d been when they still lived together. Ghift wonders if it’s an intentional ploy, to remind him of their blood. It works but probably not the way it’d be intended. It just makes him want him more.

It lifts with his hands as he explores underneath, too. And here, if Erst really doesn’t want him, he makes another wrong call in covering his face with his forearm. It is a gesture of surrender, of giving in, a beautiful log for the fire. His ribs have a strong, solid feel under the thin pad of skin and fat, matched by the light impression of his abdominal muscles and his mostly-flat chest. Slender, but firm. Firm, but not particularly muscular. He never had any real hope of outgrowing Erst in height (he hasn’t, not by a few inches) but they are all three of a similar build; he can be happy about that, at least.

“You’re beautiful.” He strokes along the line of his pectoral, the delicate indent of flesh near the armpit down and over to the sternum. He thumbs his nipples, spots of reddish-pink, until they harden in little nubs. “I’ve always thought so.” He hopes he enjoys him being this open while it lasts, too. But honesty is not so difficult right now. Each word merely adds to the moment, and this excitement in his belly. “So handsome and smart.”

“No...”

“No? You don’t say that when Folth praises you. Do you still think I don’t mean it?”

“No... but, Ghift...” Seeing just the shape of his lips moving is maddening. What do his eyes look like? Hot, or wet? Are his cheeks flushed yet? “It’s wrong...”

“I think this will make things more right than they’ve ever been, though.”

He kisses the palm on the hand he’s blinding himself with, feels it twitch the fingers against him, and notes under his own lips the way his breathing deepens the more of him he kisses. Not the mouth just yet, though it is barely open and inviting. But the apple of his throat, yes, his bellybutton, of course.

The cotton of the kiddie boxers he’s put on has stretched a little to make room for shifts on the inside. With Folth he’d be at full-mast already, but Ghift can find it in him to accept that this is a tense situation for him, and that it is making him softer than he should be. He grabs his hips in his hands to really get the _heft_ of them, a little taste of what fucking him might be like. “At the very least, you trust Folth. And Folth isn’t bothered.”

“Not a bit,” Folth agrees. “I like seeing the men I love loving each other.” His voice is a little uneven. Ghift isn’t surprised to see that he’s slowly massaging himself between the legs, over his underwear. “I’d never think you were disgusting, or anything like that.”

“Folth.” Erst uncovers his face, and it’s both, his eyes wet and hot, the tops of his cheeks faintly washed in color. “Come here. Please.”

Folth lays next to him and helps distract him from whatever is pricking his conscience with his kiss. Ghift enjoys the sight of them together a moment, knowing he put into his brother the heat that is making him kiss back so eagerly.

He kneads down his thighs on the inside, adoring the slight squish of the flesh. He remembers his legs had been the first thing he’d noticed about him really growing up. They’d been so long, almost out of place compared to the rest of him. And finally, finally, he has his own fingers in the band of his brother’s boxers, and is pulling them down, stripping him for his own use. It’s a completely different thing to see a man’s underwear pulled off and to do it yourself. It’s a sort of ownership. This is _mine_ to undress, if I so wish.

He pulls slowly, seeing. The line of Erst’s hip bones leading to his dark brown pubic curls, then his half-hard cock and balls. The lean, subtle curve from waist to hip to thigh. Ghift pulls his boxers down to his knees, then throws them over on the floor somewhere. From here, he knows basically what to do, from experimenting with his own body and a few times with Folth over the past few weeks. All he needs to do is apply what he knows to Erst and see what works.

First, lube, of course. It had cost him no little amount of mortification but he got his own bottle, just so that he would know for himself that he had even though they’re still working through the first bottle. Now...

He places his dry hand on Erst’s leg, applying enough pressure that he opens up naturally. Erst acknowledges him only second-hand, deepening into his liplock with Folth so fervently that now his hands are getting involved; in his hair, around his shoulders, wherever he can grab onto. That’s fine. Whatever he thinks he needs to cope... and they’re a threesome now, in every sense. There’s no point being jealous anymore concerning their relationships. He has his place with them.

The first time he touches his brother in a truly intimate, sexual way, he strokes a finger down his perineum and presses against his anus, the lovely pink circle of flesh that convulses at his touch. He can slip in, but takes his time testing its resistance first, massaging around it until the twitchiness goes down. He wants to give Erst time to get _used_ to him, as abhorrent as he’d find the idea if he actually said it out loud. Only then does he continue further inside; it’s so ready, so open now to penetration, his finger sucks right in.

Erst’s whole body twitches, then, his legs lifting a minute bit. His eyes are still on Folth but Ghift’s are all over him as he pleasures him the best he knows how to do. The color of his cheeks and nipples deepens. His cock turns properly erect, as Ghift rubs insistently into his prostate. The more he rubs it the more defined it feels under his fingertip. When he touches anywhere else it is just so that spot will feel even better when he returns to it.

He sees also the fine bumps of gooseflesh rising on his skin, and the increasingly choppy rhythm of his chest.

He’s fighting back a reaction. One of those whiny moans, maybe, or breathing that would unguarded become a growl. Brother... he’s going to make those sounds for him, too.

He adds another finger and Erst’s back instantly, uncontrollably arches. He growls, "if you’re going to do it, hurry up and do it.”

There’s no romance to that, and he wouldn’t be able to make him feel enough that way. Folth is more diplomatic. “He doesn’t want to hurt you.”

It would be so easy to do that, so... possible. He does not want to, but he could, if he _did_ have a mind to. He loves him too much, wants him to enjoy this too much. He finds that spot with his fingers again and is gratified when Erst nearly bloodies his nose slamming his face back into Folth’s. He tries to hide it in the kissing but there it is, in the gasps for breath and between the sloppy sounds of their liplock, a groan.

It’s hard to control himself. Every instinct he has is telling him to climb on top and jackhammer into him, even if it would put an end to this session in seconds. He knows that’s what his brother is counting on, too. But he won’t let him off so mercifully as that, even though his own cock is starting to hurt from straining against his underwear.

Erst’s has so hardened it is nearly flat against his belly. Pre-come glitters at the tip, growing in roundness until it drops off. It sticks to his skin, between glans and stomach, like web.

Another finger. He actually tries to kick this time, but must settle for a knee to the ribs. “I’m ready! Just get it over with!”

Ghift tries not to grin. Much. “So what you’re saying is that you want me to fuck you?”

His face somehow manages to get an even brighter red than all the fingering had gotten him. “Just... shut up. Don’t push your luck.”

Of course he’d threaten to quit at the possibility of getting too vulnerable. That’s not a surprise. It does mean he’ll need to be placated, at least for the moment. “Fine, fine.” Ghift gets one final good press in with all three fingers, enjoying the brrry sounds Erst makes when he can’t hide again in time.

He has contemplated more than a few nights how he’d do this; he’s gone over the whole range, every position he can imagine, and weighed the pros and cons of each, but there’s something incredibly classic about the mating press. They can be very close, physically and eye contact-wise. Erst won’t want him so near at first, but he’ll work up to it.

First, yank his own underwear down to his knees and push them off somewhere on the bed. Next, one leg on each shoulder, not face to face close but enough that his dick is rubbing against his brother’s ass. Just like when Folth was the first of all of them to get penetrated, they’re all looking now, with various expressions of varying amounts of anxiety and desire. What they had just been doing was incestuous but this is the final step, the real deal, the nail in the coffin.

Ghift holds his buttcheeks in his hands, palming them. Not quite as round as Folth’s, still very nice. He spreads them to start, then guides his cock with his main hand. This is it. This is it. His glans kisses the entrance, a little nudge in greeting for the pink spot that now must want anything, anyone in it, even a blood relative.

He pushes in, enough to pop the head inside. His brother’s body starts like it was the whole thing, and his already heavy breathing pauses before gusting out. He wonders if he’s ashamed that his cock is still hard, that it had gotten hard at all throughout this. Probably. Good men, _perfect_ men don’t react like this to their little brothers toying with them. Anyone can say and know that it’s a purely physiological process, but he will know for himself that it shouldn’t happen regardless.

“Brother... Erst... I’m going to go slow.” Hopefully it sounds like the threat he sort of means it as.

He leans forward enough that the rest of him naturally follows and slides into the hot, wet tunnel of his brother’s body. They’re pinned together, waist to waist, and as he looks into his flushed but otherwise heroically stoic face, a wave comes over him that makes the back of his eyes burn. He’d never be able to live down crying at a moment like this so he must push it away until later, when he can be sentimental in private. “Does it hurt?”

“No...”

“Does it feel good?”

If looks could kill...

“Well. You feel good to _me_. Not as clingy as Folth, the way he massages around---you know what I mean.” Erst half-nods before he catches himself and redirects his eyes to the wall. It’s cute they can understand each other like this, like a weird in-joke. They both know Folth’s body, his clingy insides and his somehow daunting gentleness when the roles are reversed. They know the smell of his cologne and aftershave. That he likes to tease and smile, and that he seems to get restless quickly when eye contact is hard to manage. And Folth knows things about them, too. All that’s left is to also know these private little things about each other.

A triangle needs three sides to be solid.

“But your insides have their charms, too... it’s soft and thick inside, like your texture is different. If it wasn’t so wet, I’d call it fluffy.” He makes the first fledgling movements of proper thrusting, inchings back and forth. “Maybe the word I’m looking for is ‘plush’.” He continues idly fondling with one hand; his brother is just too tasty like this to leave alone, and while he’s barely fucking him he can spare the balance. He pinches his nipples until they stand out in hard rounded nubs.

“Ghift, hurry... I’ll be fine, so...” Erst’s eyelids flutter half-close; the half-rim of his irises under them look up at him in a way that is uncontrollably sultry. “I need you... to get this over with.”

Ghift cautiously leans further in, now not exactly face to face, but still hovering over him nearer than he was. “I want to enjoy you, though. My perfect, beautiful brother.” But he rocks into him just a tad faster to mollify him. “I want to make you feel good, you know. As good as Folth does.”

He squeezes his eyes the rest of the way shut. The turn of his neck makes his artery stand out in stark, throbbing relief. A blurry sound that might be understood as ‘no’ leaves his lips.

He’s so beautiful. That’s all Ghift can think. He’s not like Folth, who hasn’t yet left his hero worship behind; he knows his brother is not actually some amazing person who never ever fails or does wrong. But he is handsome, and every part of being fucked makes him prettier. The swell of his pupils, the added color to his skin, the little scrunch of his eyebrows, and his lower lip puffing up with being bitten and sucked on, and the hesitant grip on the sheets his hands are taking on. Any moment now. He already has him melting for him, slowly but surely. Any moment.

A slightly more upward thrust, plowing ahead more in the direction of his big brother’s tender belly.

Erst does not get his wrist into his mouth quick enough to muffle the noise he makes. His expression for an instant looked even sweeter than before, and he whimpered---yes, whimpered, higher-pitched than his speaking noise but still a sound from his own throat.

If he really pounded into him he could probably get a few more noises like that. His aching balls are begging him to.

A little faster. A little closer. Erst must be able to feel his breath on his cheek. The little strands of hair plastered to it with sweat vibrate in place. Both of Ghift’s palms are pressed down firmly into the mattress under his arms for support now, prepared. His scent wafts up from his skin, so intensely nostalgic that Ghift’s rhythm stutters; apples, and something sweet, maybe honey. The same scent he’d leave all over his childhood bed. Is it the very same cologne or perfume, being sold somewhere still? Or a remarkably alike substitute?

He has to kiss him, has to, and does, hard prolonged _smacks_ all over his temple and cheek. Erst presses a hand to his chest to ward him off, but there’s no strength behind it. Now they are as close as he hoped for, so close he can see each individual eyelash. He rests his forehead against the side of his head and transfers his points of stability from the mattress to holding onto his brother’s legs (feeling for a moment like a piece of nigiri in the process).

“So hot,” is Folth’s mumbled assessment from the sidelines. He’s probably jerking off again but he can’t hear the sound of him doing it over their own increasingly messy-sounding sex, the schluck schluck of skin and lubricant and inside-meat.

“Hear that?” he whispers lovingly. A little more, enough he can feel his balls thudding against his brother’s ass, just to really drive things home. “We’re turning him on. You know he’s touching himself, don’t you? Even though---no, because we’re brothers.”

Erst groans low in his throat, a sound that vibrates through both of their cheeks. From there it’s like a dam has broken that he can’t build back up. On every thrust a little whimper jolts from his mouth.

“Brother, you’re so cute...” It’s so nice to hear those noises just for him, all for him, made by him. “Do you need to come? I bet you’re close, huh?”

“Hurry---please, Ghift.”

He laughs unevenly. “Hurry, you wanna come?”

“Nooo--”

“Well, I’m not unless you are, so you’d better hurry up yourself.”

He grabs his jaw and forces him into meeting his eyes. Just like his smell and the inside-feel of him, he is ripe and ready to be plucked; so ripe he’s practically spoiling before him. It’s hard to recognize these bedroom eyes as his brother’s, or to see his brother’s mouth in this hanging-open cavern that the tongue so provocatively rests slightly out of. Wanting to have sex with his brother and actually thinking of his brother being a sexual creature are two completely different things, but very fascinating. He sees that now. His brother turns just as slattern in appearance as his voice does. Not even Folth is so drastically different, or himself either, for that matter.

He wonders if he would _always_ be like this, or if his period in isolation has anything to do with it. He’ll do this happily as many times as it takes until he has his answer.

Their noses prod. His nose has bumped so many times with Folth’s by now that it’s like an automatic switch to start kissing, an instinct he follows through on even though he hadn’t planned it or Erst’s possible reactions to it out. They are close enough to kiss, and their noses touched. That’s all. Erst does not kiss him back, though the fluttering movements of his tongue in avoidance lend easily to pretend, but he allows himself otherwise to be tasted. Bigger than Folth’s mouth, same firm teeth, a slightly more bitter taste of saliva. He kisses him deep until their noses are squashing, not prodding, and he can feel every one of those whimpers travel down his throat and vibrate in his lungs.

When he pulls away for breath, he stops altogether. Erst’s fingers tense and release on his arm, not wanting to scrabble but _wanting_ to. “Ghift. Stop with the games.” It’s impossible to take his voice seriously. He’s trying to put the ‘big brother’ tone in it again, but it won’t fit with how wavery and needy it already is. “You’re getting what you want. Finish it out.”

Slow again, slow and easy. His whole body is full of warm air. He wants to mingle his skin, his air, with his brother. If fucking was the final nail in the coffin, then coming inside will be tossing it into the ocean. “Can you come like this? Without touching yourself?”

His mouth wobbles. “If I do, this is over?”

“I’ll come before we're done, of course. But, sure.”

His hand brushes his sweaty bangs out of his face. He breathes out slowly, eyes closing tight again after the sliver he’d let them open to. “Don’t talk to me. Let me concentrate.”

Rude. Fortunately, he loves him anyway. He keeps his steady pace, slow but firm enough he makes his body thump forward and back with the mattress. It’s fascinating to watch someone not simply take an orgasm as it rises but to have to conjure it up. His brother’s face is still something out of one of his wet dreams but the tightness in his mouth and brow is markedly born of concentration. Then his chest and belly rise and fall like rolling waves in time with his clenching thighs.

Suddenly his breathing deepens, whooshing, and his back arches, a few seconds warning before he comes, groaning a few choice swears. His head tilts back with the fruit of his efforts, showing off the vulnerable curve of his neck. His face is still stiff like he needs to make it happen, or keep it going; Ghift allows a few moments to enjoy his pulsing insides before deciding to give him a hand. Now that Erst is seeding their bellies, he needs to get his own before he calms down, anyway.

The tempo picks back up, slapping flesh, in it to win it (an orgasm, in this case) and a little bit closer to the way he hopes one day he can just fuck his brother whenever he wants. He tucks his head against his neck, not particularly aware of his surprised squeak or fingers digging into his shoulder. The air in his body is solidifying. Turning hot and molten. Collecting, glowing, traveling down into his cock. The pressure is unbearable.

He thinks Erst is still coming---really coming, maybe, with the added stimulus, and whimpering for him _ohgodohgodohgodohgod_ , the last thing he needs to drive him off the edge. For a moment the pressure expands then releases. He is weightless, numb, so out of his body it blocks up even his ears. Then it comes back down harder than before and he is acutely aware of every jet of sperm. They’re so forceful he can practically feel his urethra widen each time.

For a moment there is no tension between them. They rest together, his face still in his brother’s neck, and they breathe in, out, in, out, separately at first then in rhythm. Gradually he becomes aware of how sweaty he is, and that it is chilling him now that he isn’t moving around. “See. That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

“Ugh.”

He acquaints himself with the taste of his brother’s skin and salt, sucking too gently to hicky from the collarbone up to below his earlobe. He assumes Erst is too tired to make him stop, but he prefers the idea that he likes this part, too. Ghift certainly feels close and full of love for him right now. Why wouldn’t he feel the same way as well?

Folth ahems politely. “It doesn’t matter which of you, but...”

Didn’t finish himself off? Well, Ghift would have done the same in his place… it’s more fun to be a part of things, than to do it in your hand on the sidelines. He’s about to offer his own services in whatever way they may be required when he feels Erst’s head turn away from him.

It has to say something, mean something. Can just being tired lead to this relaxation in his standards?

Erst purses his mouth then drops it open, an invitation Folth accepts after a quick kiss, and just like that, Ghift watches somewhat bemusedly up-close and personal his best friend’s cock sliding carefully in and out of his brother’s mouth. He wishes he could give it the kind of attention it deserves, but having just come he’s out of energy for that just now. There is something to be said about his own position here, something vaguely… domestic. Maybe it is the act of taking care of the last of them, and finally without any shyness or pretenses about what they are doing. He is inside his brother, laying on him, and watching him give a blowjob for the first time.

He can’t say much for the technique, since he’s just letting his mouth get used, but he looks damn good doing it. His eyelashes are even prettier resting on his cheek while it bulges outward with the glans every few strokes. Good drool control too, though that’s more a minus from his point of view. Even when Folth announces his orgasm with a soft groan there’s no exciting mess or spillage. His cheeks suck in the best they can while his mouth is filled up, and his throat works in rapid swallows.

Folth slides back out with a murmured word of thanks. His fingers brush a few errant curls back into place, and for a moment they make eye-contact half-lidded and so intimate it’s embarrassing to watch. He imagines he and Folth have probably exchanged a similar look a time or two by now, but he and Erst… it’ll be a great day when he can look at him like that, and be looked at like that in return. Like there is nothing else in the world.

Then Erst comes back around to deigning to notice him. "You're heavy. Get off of me."

"You mean get out of you."

He knuckles him in his bicep so hard it seizes.

Things are weirdly normal as they prepare for bed. Erst is still skittish with him, but not as cold as he's been thus far. He brushes his teeth in the bathroom with them as they bathe. The steam and hot water are so comfortable Folth drowses on him for five minutes before he has the heart to wake him. After, as Erst showers, he sits on the toilet to provide a running commentary of what his thoughts were throughout the night to annoy and hopefully fluster him. Folth is already laying dead to the world on the bed.

They squish him in between themselves, murmur goodnight to each other, then silently fight over the blankets. Folth's body gradually fills his space with heat so that they find themselves drawing even closer, and the blanket problem resolves itself.

As it goes, he is one moment awake, the next asleep, then again awake, barely. Warm and muzzy. Still dark. A naked back up against his chest. He readies himself to sleep again by just closing his eyes, then is aware of whispering, which intrigues him enough to fight out of his doze. If there's anything so important _Folth_ wants to chat about it in the middle of the night, he wants to hear it.

“...right?”

There’s a lull so long Ghift begins to drift off again, resigned that he only woke up for the very last word. Then he hears his brother’s voice, even softer. “I guess it’s not the end of the world.”

“You had fun too, right?”

“It’s more complicated than that.”

“I can’t really know how you feel, but I don’t think it’s such a bad thing. You seem happier than when you first got here.”

“Maybe I am. It’s hard to grasp, though. It doesn’t seem right.”

“For you to be happy?”

“Either of us. After all the trouble we’ve caused. I wish I had his single-mindedness sometimes---I don’t think it bothers him at all.”

It doesn’t.

“Once we find a way for you to occupy yourself, I’m sure you’ll feel differently.” There’s another long moment silent of voices, filled with something underneath. The sound of touching, skin on skin, in hair, usually more felt than heard. Faint and whispery. “I’m happy you’re alive, Erst.”

The touching comes to a lingering stop. Breathing becomes round and deep, easy to hear. Ghift remains awake, kept up by his pulse now thudding with a queasy sensation. As he grew up he tried to grasp the future he wanted with his own two hands, and struggled for it with everything he had. It’s impossible for him to be regretful over it and the many he’s hurt along the way---even Folth and Erst themselves. He supposes he had known his brother is too tender-hearted to be the same way (and admittedly, some of what he has been Ghift indirectly pushed on him) and while he doesn’t see the sense in it, it hurts to think of him not being happy.

His feelings have been obvious enough lately, but tomorrow he’ll reiterate them in another way for him; even if they are only good coming from Folth, and not from him. I’m happy you’re alive.


	30. 大好きなエルストさん

He wakes up with his arm around Folth’s midsection, and his hair in a mess all around his face. He shakes his head like a dog shaking off water and contemplates the merits of short hair for not the first time in his life. But the last time he’d gone short he was still a child, and knows in a way he’d think of himself as one again if he went back. So the daily annoyance of his own hair trying to smother him is just something he’ll have to deal with.

The moment he clears something resembling a window for himself he lands back on his cheek. Folth’s hair comes down to his shoulders when it’s wet and clean, but the way he styles it seems to miraculously last throughout the day. And Erst, of course short-haired, even if it’s long enough to curl around his neck.

They’re both still asleep. Folth on his back, Erst close to him on the other side, holding onto his shoulder with a hand and a smooshed cheek. Hmm. Things rarely turn up like this. Last night must have tired Erst out considerably; and then, who knows how long they were talking beyond what he heard.

Maybe he should use this opportunity to do something _nice_. What a thought.

He slips out of bed and creeps downstairs. His mouth tastes like dead morning but he wants to be as sure as possible he won’t wake Erst up. Breakfast, breakfast… toast is more his thing, light and easy to make. This is probably more of a pancake occasion; he’s only made them a few times after skipping dinner the previous night, but even for his nonexistent skills it’s hardly genius-level cooking. Finding where Folth keeps everything in his kitchen is the hard part.

The homey smell of mediocre cuisine fills the house. Erst comes shambling down while he’s getting the plates ready.

“You can cook.” He sounds mildly impressed.

“You weren’t around to do it for me anymore, so I thought I might as well learn.” The table is set for the three of them, three plates of three pancakes, with a bottle of syrup and pot of joe on the side. “I was kind of wanting to serve you both in bed, but maybe it’s best you and I eat first. I want to talk to you.”

“Yeah?” Erst glances back up the way he came with obvious longing. “I just came down real quick to make sure the kitchen wasn’t on fire, so...”

“Relax.” He seats himself and extends an inviting gesture to the chair catty-corner.

It’s a sunny morning. The room is awash in light that bleeds the color out of everything. He feels like a part of a watercolor, something peaceful and idyllic, two men in their underwear, obviously brothers by the look of them, sharing breakfast.

He’d never minded the taste of his own cooking before, but his pancakes really are crap compared to Folth’s.

Now that he isn’t in his bed and under him, his brother again looks distant to him. Something too pure for him to touch.

Ghift’s mouth goes dry at the thought of what he wants to say. His pancake suddenly catches in his throat like toast. “The world is an amazing place. Sometimes… it seems impossible that we could all three be together again.”

Erst makes a non-committal agreeing noise, but he is giving him notice again.

“It’s so amazing, that… I’m glad you’re still a part of it. Because that makes it amazing for me, too.” He fights off the flush he can feel coming up on his cheeks by taking a quick, forceful swig. “Besides. There’s still a promise you need to keep to someone, right?”

“Yeah. That’s right.” He smiles a little, and keeps it for the rest of breakfast.

Not that Ghift particularly wants to be introduced to some stranger in another world. But if it cheers up his brother some, he’ll deal.

Afterwards they go together to bully Folth out of bed.

Folth praises his flat nondescript pancakes so much he ends up wishing he hadn’t bothered. For an hour or so he and Erst are left alone while work calls, but otherwise they are together throughout the day. For the first time it feels like they are a true threesome. Like that last little wall of reservation among them was torn down. Erst does not hasten to look away if he kisses Folth in front of him, and the one time he tests his boundary again with him by a kiss on the lips, he accepts it with good grace (and a very nostalgic sigh).

Erst makes dinner; beef stew rich and dark, a good filling meal for two robust men. Ghift can’t finish half of his bowl. He can only stand his potatoes to be so savory. Both of them rib him on his light stomach.

He and Folth wash dishes afterward. This must too be a part of their expanding comfort as a true triangle. It’s nice, but he doesn’t feel the need any longer for preparation and an atmosphere worthy of lovemaking. After the final chores are done they’ll probably hop into bed together and that'll be that.

Folth looks at him from the corner of his eyes, like he knows exactly what he’s thinking. “It’ll be fun picking up where last night left off.” He calls out loud enough to be heard in the other room, “Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, yeah.”

In their (marital? basically?) bed he watches Folth’s hands on his brother’s body. His fingers slide up his thighs, a little indent forming where the thumb presses in. Long fingers, with well-articulated joints, strong but not knobby, palms broad but slim in depth. He’d seen them in miniature, softer form a thousand times throughout their childhood. It makes this pair easily recognizable, even as they do things he’d never seen Folth do back then. They do not travel just the span of Erst’s thighs, but fondle the hard jut of his hip bones, up to sides then ribs, and _squeeze_ at the pecs, pushing them together.

“They’re not breasts,” Erst mumbles. Folth grins.

“They fit right in my hands, though... look...” He squishes them together a few more times to make his point.

Ghift breathes in deep to steady his racing heart and joins on the other side. This is his home, the only family he has left now. He grounds himself on them both, Folth’s shoulder, Erst’s arm. There’s barely any thought to limits, or borders; they are his, he is theirs; when Folth kisses him it feels like he has taken something from inside him when they part, and this time when he kisses Erst, he kisses him back. Slow, uncertainly, but reciprocating.

The idea of incest hasn’t bothered him since he realized what his feelings are. Whether it ever genuinely did for Erst, he wonders if it is transforming now, turning from some noxious taboo into an illicit thrill.

“What do you want?” he hears himself ask. “Folth? Which way? Or...”

Erst bites on his lower lip, looking between the both of them. He speaks very reluctantly, his general demeanor that of someone volunteering an embarrassing tidbit of information. “I feel like I’m always getting bullied. So, this time I want to.”

“Brother’s going to bully me? Sounds fun.” Erst’s expression deepens into a sulk, but he does mean it. He can’t imagine what his brother’s idea of being mean would be.

Folth is as helpful as ever. “Bullying is all about attitude, Erst. I know you can do it!”

“Hmph. Well, I’m going to need you naughty boys to lay down for your punishment, then.” His face turns pink as he says it, but it hardly takes away from the effect of what he’s saying.

Ahh... finally Ghift is a ‘boy’ too. A bad one, but it’s not as though he hasn’t always known that.

He and Folth lay side by side on their bellies, laughing in nervous anticipation. Probably they both know what’s likely to happen. He doubts Folth has ever been physically disciplined a day in his life. Some physical confrontation was a regular part of their squabbling as kids, but Erst has never taken him over his knee or anything like that. Would he have liked it? Maybe not at the time. But in the lonely years since, he thinks he’d find the memory of his brother’s hand on his ass to be a comfort.

A hand glides down his leg, barely touching the skin. He can feel the peach hairs there rise with the gooseflesh. “You’ve both been such bad boys, lately. And here I thought you were better than that, Folth.”

“I’m sorry.” He sounds like he’s about to laugh, but he buries his face in the pillows with properly contrite shame. “You’re so cute when you look troubled that I couldn’t help myself.”

“I wonder if this is someone else’s influence on you. Do you think so?”

Ghift looks sideways to stare hard at the sliver of a cheek he can see.

“Noo, it’s all my fault. You always made me want to be bad.”

“Victim-blaming, now?” There’s the sound of a sudden, sharp smack, and Folth jumps, ramming his elbow into his. “That’s not very nice, either.”

“I didn’t mean it like that!” He bursts out laughing at the end, no real joy apparent. It’s an amplification of their nervous titters earlier, shrill and nearing hysteria at the highest notes. “Please, I’m sorry.”

A lull. The tension of the moment rises. Erst’s voice is too soft to break it. “Are you nervous?”

“I’ve always been ‘good’,” Folth answers. His voice is muffled by his arms and the pillow. “I barely need to try. Being scolded by you... even if it’s just for fun, I mean, I like it. But. Yeah. I’m nervous.”

“I understand. Just remember that I’m doing it out of the love in my heart, okay?”

Whatever he’s feeling, he can’t be too upset. Folth peeks at him real quick just to stick his tongue out. “I love you too.”

Erst continues speaking to Folth, while one of his hands lazily rubs Ghift’s leg. “The both of you teamed up against me too, right? That’s not fair at all. Is it?”

“No.” Another smack, and he gasps. “I’m sorry.”

“And _then_ what did you do bad?”

“I was a tease,” Folth says, sounding like he is both glum and smiling. “But I wasn’t trying to be---”

There’s a smack anyway, cutting his explanation short. He whimpers and wiggles the pain out.

“You said you loved me for a long time...”

“Mhmm?”

“Th-then, did you ever... you said you did. When was the first time you touched yourself to me?”

Ghift’s heart beats double-time. He’s not sure if he wants, or doesn’t want, to be asked the same thing.

“Erst!” His head scrubs back and forth like he can hardly contain himself, even though he’d been only too happy to discuss personal fantasies before. But he’d been in charge of the telling then, letting them out as easy and vulgar as graffiti in a bathroom stall. “You’ll just scold me if I tell you.”

“I’m hardly tired yet, so that’s fine.”

“Errst... after I stared learning about sex when I was twelve. A little through sex ed., then the other kids.” His voice gets lower and lower as he talks, until Erst smacks him again. “Geh! Umm, and-I-imagined-everything-I-learned-with-you.” His rubs his face into the pillows again. “I was already doing that with kissing, but sex... that was when I masturbated to you for the first time. I lay in my bed under my sheets in the middle of the day, with a towel under me because I heard something was supposed to come out now I was growing-up.” He laughs a little. “Would have been better off with a washcloth.”

“Is that when you thought about marrying me?”

“Uhh... not yet. The first thing was, eh...” His voice lowers again, and Ghift knows for certain now that he is the same as him. A real pervert. “It’s embarrassing. I don’t think you’d want to hear it.”

“What else could it have been?” There’s the sound of a more patting-type sound, like he’s striking Folth’s butt just hard enough to make it bounce a bit. “Now I have to know.”

“Fine, but... I warned you.” He clears his throat. If he’d just look his way, Ghift would give him an understanding nod, to show that he isn’t alone. “Actually, it was always about you, and me, except, well, the way we were when we last knew each other. You, this grown man, so dashing and... suave, and me... not an adult.”

The words sink in. He tries to imagine this cute barely pubescent boy, fondling himself while imagining being even _younger_ or at least that same barely-anything age, and being felt up by a man who would surely know all about the mysterious business of sex and how to do it. “For what?” He has to know. Erst hasn’t made a noise; stunned into silence, presumably. “Blowjob? Handjob?” Or was he thinking already of Erst sinking himself into him?

“Hands, that time. Showing me how to, um, touch myself, and how to touch him.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” Erst says faintly. His grip on Ghift’s leg grows heavier, leaning into it. “You couldn’t have thought...”

“No, of course not.” Folth jumps up onto his forearms, and looks over his shoulder. “It was just, you know... a game, like this. I liked to think of you taking care of me. I still barely knew what I was doing, so...”

“F-folth... you’re a bad boy.” His voice is deadly flat; Folth actually seems genuinely hurt for a moment. “I still love you. But you know what you need, right?”

He nods, and resumes his previous position with a sad, mournful groan. “A spanking because I’m bad.”

“More than bad; naughty.”

The spanking continues into a series of harsh slapping sounds; if he’s holding back it isn’t by much. Folth’s face is hidden in his arms but his shoulders twitch with each one. He’s a strong man. Does it hurt yet? Is it just the shame of revealing a fantasy like that? Each slap does not quite blend into the other. There’s a small but distinct pause between each one. Smack-smack-smack-smack, in perfect time. At least twenty by now. He wishes he knew the exact number just to see if he could take more.

It’s a tiny little mumble at first, “sorry” then louder, heavy with emotion, “I’m sorry!”

A few more good smacks round him out. They’re both breathing hard with exertion.

“I don’t really get the appeal,” Erst admits when he’s finally caught his breath, “of a fantasy like that. But you’re still a good boy, Folth. My good boy.” He cuddles against his back, face in the crook of his neck, lips pressing against the back of his ear, nape, shoulder.

Folth sniffs and turns his head. His lower lashes gleam with wet. “You’re not mad?”

“No, not at all. Just... surprised. And you’re formally forgiven for all the other stuff.”

The mildness of his reaction must be another Folth-only privilege. There’s no way he’d be saying it’s basically okay if Ghift aired his dirty smutty laundry. “How bad does it hurt?”

Folth sniffs again. “Not much. It just made me feel so,” his voice catches, “like I really was just a bad boy.”

“Well, you’re not. I don’t think I’ve ever known a gooder boy.” Erst kisses his cheek and lays on him a while. One of their hands meet and grasp together.

Folth smiles. “Your palm is warm.”

“Maybe you weren’t hurting, but I was. You have real buns of steel.”

“And you have a _great_ attitude.”

They laugh, and the moment is good, sweet; they are all fine. Folth turns his head to meet him halfway for a proper kiss. And he kisses him like he is all he needs in this world, or like he’s trying to devour him from the inside. Some of the wetness in his lashes pools together enough to spill a single tear down his cheek. It disappears where their skin meets. Without looking Erst feels for his face and brushes his thumb against the trail it left behind.

With Folth’s emotional comfort assured, Erst regains some of his previous haughty air. He sits up, weight on his thighs to keep himself off the backside he’d just tenderized. Their eyes meet, and there’s a look in them a few shades removed from the disinterest he grew up with. “And you. If I wanted to really bully you, I think I’d know the best way to do it. I’d kick you outside while we made love, and keep you out there for the rest of the night.”

Ghift stares back evenly. Being abandoned like that might be more than he can bear---no doubt Erst knows it too. And yet there is a part of him morbidly curious to see just how badly he'd breakdown for Erst not just merely being shy, or cold, but actively telling him _I don’t want you here_. That doesn’t mean Folth would agree to it, but he might if Ghift played it cool about not caring. He wonders how bad he’d get. How bad he’d feel. He hasn’t felt bad like that since Folth won their rematch. A little while, for him.

“...but luckily for you, I’m not cruel. So I think it’s just going to be more of this for you; something you could have used when you were a kid, maybe. Even though I don’t think you can be spanked enough for all the trouble you’ve caused.”

“Probably not,” he agrees. He really wants to turn over as Erst comes closer to his side of the bed, really wants to kiss him after seeing him suck faces with Folth. But Erst puts a warning hand on his lower back (it is absolutely racing with heat) and for now, he is playing the part of a bad boy seeking absolution. He’ll be still.

He follows Erst’s form out of the corner of his eye, until he feels his knee between his thighs, nudging them open. The hand on his back moves down to his ass, and kneads a cheek so hard he has the unmistakable sensation of being pulled open.

“When exactly did you start feeling something else for me?”

“I knew for sure at fifteen, had an idea a few years before.” It seems unbelievable now that it took him so long to sort himself out, when he had a name for it the whole time: love. He’d already decided younger than that that he was infatuated with Folth. It was just some remaining bit of hesitation, as his age reached the boundary of knowledge, of knowing what exactly the word ‘taboo’ applies to. Being in love with his best friend wasn’t that... but with his brother, he still needed some time to come to grips with it. “But I felt what I did for years before that.”

“You were a child.” His hand continues squeezing down the back of his left thigh, so hard it almost pinches. “You said before that... you felt like you were raised into feeling that way.”

“I know you didn’t intend it, if that’s what you’re worried about.” What a childhood that would have been. If it caused his big brother to treat him with love for his husbandry, he’d even have been happy for it. And it would have been... so romantic, being raised to be the future brother-wife to the heir of the Brattern family. “But you were my whole world before I met Folth. And even after, you were still a huge chunk of it.” His face is burning a little, but it’s nice to say it all, too. To be known. “And I admired you so much. You seemed perfect to me.”

Erst sighs. “Falling for your own brother is so... it’s not like I could have raised you any differently and still felt like a good person.”

A little punishment is immediately forthcoming (for, he assumes, being such a bad boy as to love his brother despite his pure intentions), three solid whaps on each cheek. It stings a bit. He wonders how much more it’d hurt if he wasn’t winded from walloping Folth. The stinging right now isn’t bad; kind of nice and warm all over his backside, actually.

“Ghift, when did...” His voice wavers, then firms with a hurriedness that is not a little suspicious. “Whendidyoumasturbatetome?”

He wishes he could see what expression he makes. “I didn’t know what this was at the time, either. But I used to do it in your bed.”

There’s a long silence indeed that he takes perverse delight in. He can’t imagine the thoughts going through Erst’s head and what he must be feeling. Disgust? Confusion? Pretty good bets. How long? Why there? When? During his long absences, or, infinitely more intolerable, while he was still living at home and sleeping in that bed every night? Even Folth, when he dares a look at him, is staring at him in a slack-jawed way.

“G-ghift... my bed...” He sounds like he’s going to implode! Just like he would sometimes when they were little and fighting. Calm on the surface, roiling underneath.

“Not directly on your sheets, if that helps. And I only did it humping the mattress the first few times. I discovered my hand pretty quickly.”

“Humping... the... Ghift!” His voice is so tight he sounds like a dying duck. Ghift actually feels a little bad---not that he used to masturbate in his bed, but that even like this, Erst is still the one getting bullied. Maybe he should take some pity on him...

“I feel just awful about it,” he intones. “I’m the world’s naughtiest boy.”

“Don’t get smart with me,” Erst snaps. He whacks him good and hard, not on either one buttcheek, but right in the middle.

“Mh!” The blow travels and stimulates something inside him. It mingles nicely with the residual pain across his skin.

“Did that hurt much? You’re more delicate than Folth.”

While that is the case... while he knows that’s always been the case... he doesn’t think that’s what is happening this time. “Mhm, brother... it’s what I deserve, so it’s fine.” He wiggles in little sharp movements, like he’s trying to shake off the pain. A slow, indulgent writhe feels more like the mood at the moment, though.

Erst hmms, obviously reluctant to agree with him, even about his supposed punishment. “And that’s why you were such a brat all the time. Because you were in love with me.”

“Yes... I hated you being with anyone else. Even Folth, a lot of the time.” He gets spanked again for his annoying younger brother jealousy, but it’s on _both_ cheeks again, three on each, not where he wants them to land. He wiggle again in frustration; if he tells him to hit him there, he definitely won’t. “You were a Brattern, like me, so we belonged together. I wanted to marry you so bad when I knew...”

“Marriage again? Geez, both of you...” He sounds like it is such a terrible burden, to have the complete love of two cute little boys.

Another hard three for the disgusting desires he harbored as a child, right on the spot that radiates through his whole pelvis. He was probably at least half-erect before, but the ache in his cock tells him he’s at full mast now. Why? From being spanked? It’s just that spot, though...

“You’ve been a bad influence on Folth, too. Isn’t that right?”

“He told you I’m not,” he mumbles. He presses his forehead into his forearms, and tries not to sound overly breathy as he speaks. At least, not ‘turned on’ breathy. “You just look so cute when you’re flustered. So cute you tempt even an overbearingly nice person like him.”

“I-I do not!”

Oh, but there it is, and he wants so badly to turn over and kiss him again, hold him down, make him whimper and come on him---then Erst _whallops_ him with what must be his whole shoulder put into it, too much force to aim on-center exactly but the force of it jolts up his tailbone and straight through his cock. A yelp, born somewhere between surprised and aroused, jerks out of his throat.

“I think he liked that,” Folth comments, laughing a little.

Erst’s voice is more grim. “I wouldn't be surprised. I really don’t know what I’m going to do with him...” His fingers stroke almost along the nail over the burning prickly skin of his ass. It makes him wince, but it, too, is a good feeling. “If I wasn’t already sore, I’d try to go over his threshold. But, hmm.”

He wants to whine about it, even if in this denial he actually finally is getting bullied. But he is not sure yet that he wants to confirm Folth’s suspicions, either. Before he can wonder what else is going to happen there’s a hand in his hair, pulling down and urging his face upwards. Directly after something jams into his lips and teeth---fingers---and he obediently opens his mouth. His vision narrows to a sliver of headboard and pillows, and even that tiny crescent is fuzzy. The throbbing pain in his rear connects up his spine to the one in the back of his scalp, and the growing ache in his lips.

He sucks automatically. Erst’s fingers, two of them, filling up his mouth and pressing down on his tongue, the thumb digging into his cheek. A little further back and he’d start making him gag, but they’re in just the right place where his saliva is going into over-production. Tastes like warm, dry skin. The edge of a callus scrapes into his taste buds.

Erst says his name in a way he has never heard him say it before; low and breathy. Then, “Would you have always been this easy for me?”

It hurts, but he nods. Always, always.

The fingers are pulled as roughly from his mouth as they’d been inserted. They skim down his spine leaving a faint impression of wet that makes his skin shiver. The dry set lets his hair go to squeeze again on his ass, so hard his hip on that side protests. Erst’s wet, spit-soaked, germy fingers press there against him then inside.

Something surges up inside him, a ribbony and splattered mess light and dark and sad and happy all in his guts and up his lungs. There’s so much and he is a small container for it. “Brother!”

“Shh.”

It doesn’t hurt but the potential looms in how tight the stretch is. His own or Folth’s fingers have never felt so defined. They seem to go impossibly deep inside him. Something inside him is plucked so relentlessly it renders him speechless; not even just the prostate, he can’t tell if he’s actually being touched there, but in every touch in every place---sparking.

He remembers with sudden clarity Erst, sitting in the window seat, the sun lighting up his hair, turned away from him and faceless.

He would have done anything to make him look at him.

And he has.

The fullness inside him disappears. He whines not very seriously for it to come back, or some kind of touch, at least, even just a hand to steady on. “Brother...”

“Shhh. I know.”

Does he really? Now that he’s all stripped down for him, he’d better know.

“Folth, can you get me... thanks.”

The pressure returns, bigger, driving again a wild mixture of everything he feels for him through his sternum like a spike. It’s finally going to happen, finally, the one single last part he needs, _Erst loves him too_ \---he must, to be this hard for him. It still doesn’t hurt, though he’s obviously bigger than his fingers, lube truly is a wonderful invention but he almost wishes he hadn’t used it, to keep that high-strung ache between them like he could actually break him;

it’s sparking again. Every inch of him inside of him. Right up into his head. It’s making his vision swim.

He squeezes his eyes as shut-tight as they will go, and rubs his cheek harder harder into the pillows. His hair is starting to stick to him. If he could lay on his back that might be the only thing he would change here. But he assumes he is wanted in this position for a reason. Maybe it’s the only way Erst can bring himself to take him just yet.

His thighs are flush to his when there is no more to give him. His fingertips are tentative, tantalizing, on his hips. The only thing Ghift can hear is his own harsh breathing. In, out, in, out.

Folth comes in closer to his side. His arm goes over his back, hugging him close, warming him further immeasurably. He blindly seeks his mouth and his nose fills with the scent of him, faded aftershave and sweat and aqua, the heat still rising off his face. It slips down and lays lightly on the back of his tongue, where he can barely taste it. Folth’s tongue actually being in his mouth does nothing to displace it.

The slightest movement inside him seems enormous. And it is so so _so_ slow, maybe teasing, maybe getting cold-feet at the very end, and wouldn’t that be just like him? Whatever the motivation he is a slow careful tease even when Ghift reaches back to grab his leg at the tender place above and off from the knee.

The bed creaks along with them. Where their skin touches is starting to stick with sweat, too. There’s a noise that barely registers at first, buried under all other stimulus. A voiced sound. Not coming from him, or Folth---he’d feel it in his own mouth. Erst, then; it gets louder bit by bit, and he realizes that he’s stifling himself again. Pride and love swells in his chest. It is nice to know that even in the submissive position, he is no exception to his brother’s noisiness. He still feels good enough to make him moan.

The revelation is enough with the pleasure lighting up the inside of his body like fireflies to drive him off an edge that somehow leaves him wanting more, even when his body fills with the usual post-climax ache and fatigue. He can’t bear to part with either of them yet.

As the night passes he loses track of his body with theirs. Even his head and thoughts go blank. He is nothing, not even himself, only flesh with flesh. On some level he is aware of his own exhaustion but there is still more more more to be had, to touch, to want. Sleep pales in comparison. He’d rather the painful ache in his stomach as he comes for the---third?---time, almost entirely dry now. He’d rather be in one of them, or one of them in him. Erst’s weight, the muddled look on his face, just as lost as he feels. Folth’s amazing ass, his fingers curled around his cock even when it hurts. The sheets damp and wet thorough in places with god-knows-what. A swollen lower lip to suck. A throat to bite.

He winds up on top of his brother at some point, riding him, and can’t really believe he’s doing it. Should say something but he’s too tired for the words to form. Not even to say he’s thankful; say, thank you for still being hard, or getting hard again. His seed is already inside him. Sadly it will never germinate into more. But that’s alright. If they are all together, that’s alright. Maybe one day they can adopt.

“A little more,” Erst whispers. His eyes are half-closed and sleepy. “More. A little...”

His thighs tremble with the effort, but he tries. A little harder. A little faster. Folth presses his face to his shoulder with a barely-managed kiss. He feels his hand working below his rear, massaging Erst’s balls, he guesses, by the position.

Thinking about it makes his own pair buzz as sweetly as if they were being fondled too.

Erst almost whimpers his name, the _f_ catching between his teeth and lower lip, elongating it. His cock pulses inside him without any added wetness. Nevermind that, his fingers bite down on his hips like he’s all his his his because no doubt they’ll bruise. Exciting to be marked, and just in time. An old set in the same spot is yellowing.

After, he takes his brother’s wrists in his hands, and pins them above his head. Their eyes meet but are they really seeing him? He’s not sure, either. Erst has marked him, so he wants to mark him back. Even if he has already it would have been on accident during all the pushing and pulling and gripping. He wants to do it not incidentally but purposefully. He kisses his neck under his ear where it will show best, where everyone will know his perfect handsome brother belongs to someone who is not them, will never be them. Erst groans when he sucks. That’s all.

He tries for Folth next, but he guides him lower, to the crook of his neck. Compromise. Folth kisses him back in the hollow of his throat, nipping so it barely hurts.

He’s not aware of falling asleep. It’s more like passing out.

It’s late in the morning when he regains consciousness, and only because the sun is shining right over his eyes. His whole body is miserably sore. Can you bruise your dick? His dick throbs and feels tender just being where it is. Folth and Erst are nestled in close to both sides of him, which he probably liked at the time, assuming he was thinking anything at all, but is now way too close and sticky.

He tries to sit up, his belly muscles give out in protest, back down he goes. Alright. Over he goes... carefully, one limb at a time, so he doesn’t wake anyone for his graceless floundering. Bright red spots waiting to turn purple and blue litter his skin. _Nice_. He rubs a few in admiration after he manages to haul himself to the edge of the bed.

The room was small to start, and is even more cramped on walking space with the new bed. Furniture had to be moved around... maybe it’s because he doesn’t have much in the way of personal effects, but he still thinks of it as ‘Folth’s room, our bed’. Maybe he should start changing that. Buy some things of his own. There’s so much in here already.

Like his childhood bedroom had been, much of the things in it are obviously sentimental in value. Stuffed toys, polished rocks set in the sill, both of their toy swords now standing in the corner, a plethora of books, one he recognizes---Folth’s favorite storybook.

Ghift rises unsteadily to go pick it out. There’s a weird moment, holding onto this book naked that Folth used to read from all the time when they were kids. Maybe it just throws into perspective how long of a time has passed, or maybe it’s that the book seems so innocent and pure, and well, they aren’t anymore.

He flips through a few pages, not really reading, just looking. ...ah, so this was how he named him. Kagerou. Folth named his newborn Cross after his favorite story-hero. He supposes he must have known of this Kagerou too. The connection just hadn’t been made until now.

When he puts the book back into place, something else draws his attention.

There’s a pile of sheafs of paper stapled together. The first page is recognizably Folth’s handwriting. Would he get angry if he looks? Better to ask forgiveness than permission, he figures. Besides, as long as he’s been here, surely this all would have been moved somewhere hidden if it was private, right? Right.

It takes a moment to decide what he’s looking at. Then another page. Then another. He glances through one sheaf, then the next---it’s notes. Class notes. All of it. It annoys him because he has a feeling he knows why these are hanging around even though Folth has graduated a few years back. On the other hand...

He sits down by the bed, with what little space there is between it and the other wall, and reads. It’s just notes, no graded papers except for a few essays, but in a way that’s even better. It’s entirely Folth’s writing anyway, his thoughts on the World Warp War or harmony between native residents of Lynbaum and the Summons, his explanation on the Eucross’ origin and purpose. Some pages in he’s aware of movement behind him on the bed, then someone looking over his shoulder. Erst, he presumes by the hour.

They read together a few minutes more.

“At the house,” Erst starts, then coughs to clear his throat. He still sounds like he had his throat busy all night, when they’d only gone that route a few times...? that Ghift can recall. “Our house. What happened to it?”

“I left in a hurry, so I didn’t take much with me. I don’t really know... I suppose with no one to pay for it, someone came by eventually and cleaned it out.”

“I think so,” he says glumly. “Not like there’s any... any point, anymore. But I was still kind of missing them.”

The papers themselves? Or what they represented? He doesn’t ask. He suspects he knows already. Later he can make fun of Folth about all this, but the energy expended last night is catching up to him. His stomach is gnawing on itself. As he turns, he makes eye contact with Erst, and kisses him quickly on the lips. “Morning, by the way.”

“It certainly is a one,” Erst replies. His eyebrows raise a little, but that’s all. There’s the little red spot under his ear, dark purple in the middle, spotted with even darker red. It’s just visible under a lock of hair.

“My hickey looks good on you.”

That gets more of a twitch out of him, but he recovers pretty quickly, considering how rabbity he’s been about their side of this triangle. “I’m sure you’re wearing a few of my bruises, too.”

“You’re right; you gave me these ones here---when you were fucking me for the third or so time?” He stands to show them off, leaving the papers on the desk. His are coming in the same, best near his lower belly where the thumbs had been digging in, then the other four on the actual hip, over older faded yellow marks.

To his surprise, Erst sits up and reaches out to touch them. His fingers come right into place on the new spots. “I vaguely remember.” He rubs, setting off five different little pricks of pain. “Quite a night, huh? I only woke up ‘cause I’m starving. Otherwise I’d probably be in bed til evening.”

“Yeah,” Ghift replies doubtfully. He’s glad if he’s going to finally accept their relationship, but it’s not fun when he doesn’t fluster as easily. Maybe he decided to take what they said about him being tempting to bully to heart. "I was thinking I’d brush and shower up, then make some breakfast. We can let slugabed sleep in that long.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

Blessed domesticity! It does his heart good. But as hard as he tries it’s hard to be content with just that. He readies himself for the morning with a long-overdue piss, and stands in front of the bathroom sink to wash the sleep gunk out of his eyes. “You know,” he calls, “I was wondering why you’re so _loud_. Was stimulation particularly sensitive for you because you were trapped in that thing for so long? Or is that just you?”

“Huh? Well---”

“Then I figured it must just be you, since I remember hearing you like that when I was a kid too---both the time you knew I heard and the time you didn’t.”

It’s been a long time since he’s had to lock a bathroom door against his brother.

Kagerou returns about a week after his send-off. Maybe he’s learned more about being on his own, but Ghift doubts he’ll ever really change that much. He still clings to Folth when he’s around, and the first time they’re alone together, he asks him if he’s serious about big bro, or _really_ serious?

 _Serious_ , Ghift dutifully replies. This is probably the closest he’ll get for a while to having ‘the talk’ with Folth’s actual parents (which he is still looking forward to, but neither of them is sure when it would be wise). He doubts they’d ask him if he was _serious_ about their son, but beggars can’t be choosers. This is the best practice run he’s going to get. He’s loved him since they were small, after all.

Me too, Kagerou says. He’s quite a bit shorter, but he steps up to him like it doesn’t matter. He extolls Folth’s many virtues for what feels like five minutes and ends by saying that he could have chosen much better and not a whole lot worse, so he’d better remember how lucky he is to have his love.

With the warning out of the way Kagerou becomes surprisingly cordial over time. No doubt still watchful, but with his piece said, watching is all he needs to do. Otherwise he does not often play the part of the jealous little brother figure Ghift thought he might have to deal with---someone like himself. Sometimes he demands specific attention from Folth and time to themselves, but generally all he asks is that they keep the ‘mushy stuff’ in front of him to a mininum.

Another half-year passes steadily. Their relationship is still a secret. His lack of motivation for much of anything is still a hindrance to an otherwise great life. Erst still has his moody days where trying to touch him just annoys him. Occasionally he’s willing to distract himself with pounding each other silly. Ghift never knows which it is until he makes the attempt. The great sex is worth the times he gets his head bitten off.

One day Folth comes home with good news. “They’ve been taking note of your good behavior. Of course, I’ve been vouching for you too.”

Ghift goes to meet him at the door while Erst continues banging around in the kitchen. “They still don’t know about us, I take it?”

“Well... I’ll be sure to ask for forgiveness later. Eventually. But!” He gestures to Kagerou beside him, who is gazing not at anything specific with a serious look on his face. “You know Kagerou isn’t really a yokai, right? That he’s not from Silturn?”

“Something like that.” The opposite of Nether, only given form and memory when it came into contact with a human child that fell through a Gate into the Netherworld. As its opposite, it is the only thing capable of purifying Nether. Four of them together, the different forms that it was capable of taking, came together to purify Erst of his infection in the Cocoon World Fillujah. “Did that get someone’s attention?”

“I’ve been getting offers for a while, but I wanted to be sure things were settled with us first. There are groups that want to bring him in for study, to see how his purification works, in case of disaster events or someone else getting... ideas, like you.”

First of all, he’s offended Folth thinks someone could just _get an idea_ when it took him over ten years of study to have the mastery he did. Second of all... “Are you leaving, then?”

“They’re asking for you too, is the thing, you and Erst. They want whatever insight you have to offer, since Nether itself is so poorly understood. Know the enemy, right? And there might end up being other similarities, as well.” He ruffles Kagerou’s head. “The Eucross has given their okay, as long as I’m still keeping watch over you. And Kagerou too.”

“I see. It’s a little ironic for my blood, but at least I’ll have something to do. Erst will be ecstatic, I’m sure.” If this research leads to Gates into other worlds, it might be the lead he needs into being able to keep his promise. And if he’s in a better mood maybe he’ll put out more.


	31. Chapter 31

“Got it!” Raj calls happily. The sun plays beautifully off the scales of his catch, a golden fish---not his first ever, even for the day. A rainbow flickers briefly off the midair spray. “More fish for dinner! Amu, let’s measure.”

“Well, alright, but I don’t see the point… you’ve already fished up the entire breadth of every species here.”

The pier is gleaming wet and a little slippery with their evening catch. The sight and smell of saltwater tingling his nose is pleasant by itself, but it recalls memories he has held tight to his chest for the days upon weeks that have passed. It’s great doing this with Amu and Ist, ‘course, but it used to be so busy down here in the Cove with fishing and napping in the shade. He can never keep them off the forefront of his mind for long.

Once, he had probably been lonely without precisely knowing that he was. He knows sometimes now that he is, when the three of them have parted for the night and he is left to himself. There’s no one to talk with him when he goes up onto his roof.

The sky is almost orange when they make their way back. They take turns cooking, not in a round robin, just whoever wants to try their hand at it. He misses that, too; Ray and Fair’s cooking, and the noise at mealtimes. The pavilion seems so empty now with just them.

Ist prepares dinner; grilled fish with a mixed salad of fruits and vegetables. There’s more lulls in the conversation than there used to be, but it’s all comfortable. They’re around each other so much there’s no point in forcing things.

It’s fully dark out afterward, but he’s not in the mood yet to go to bed. He doesn’t feel like staying up on the roof for air, like he usually does in times like these, either. Being ‘inside’ Patch or any of the others has never bothered him before but tonight he knows why it had unnerved his new friends so much to be here. He can’t see it at all, but he supposes somewhere around him is the boundary that separates this place from everywhere else.

It’s like sitting in a cage.

He leaves on his own. If the other two find out he might get scolded, even though toward the end of things not even Illidelucia had been a threat to them. Well, Ist will probably know anyway; but then he can see for himself how safe he is. He’s still dressed for the day, too, so he won’t even catch a cold!

When the others were here, they recognized parts of Fillujah as belonging originally to their own. And those places took on heightened importance to him, knowing that they held significance to his new friends as well. The cafe, the pavilion, the ship, the sacred forest and Routhburg Castle…

The first time he was able to bring Erst outside as a member of the team, he brought him all around, eager to see what he knew besides the Eucross building inside. It was only coming back through the Star-studded plain that he stopped.

“Here?” he asked.

“Maybe.” Erst looked around slowly, and Raj looked with him at the green slopes of land, dotted with the remnants of some kind of ruins. He’d assumed they’d fallen here with everything else, but maybe that wasn’t so. “I feel like… was it when I was Nether-infected? I think it was the closest I could get to sleeping. I would come here, and… wait. It was out of the way so no one ever passed by. And then…?”

He rubbed his forehead, like thinking or the memory hurt.

It’s strange. Unlike some of the other places, Raj had been by here all the time and never thought much of it. During the day he tries to be more mindful. At night he can see why he’d rest here. It’s where he heads to now, to see what he now thinks of as a real sky, and the real world… such as it is, all patchworked together.

The wind is refreshing but not cold. For some reason his skin is tingling with gooseflesh. As he climbs up the slope toward the center even the hair on the back of his neck rises.

There’s someone else here. He doesn’t know how he knows that, but he does, and the knowing gives him no anxiety or concern. Actually… his heart is swelling inside his chest, about to burst.

He hears low speech as he gets closer, and smells a scent out of place on the night air. Something very nostalgic. He sees them only a second before them, waves, and calling this instant a reunion is too weak a word.

It is a coming together of souls, so complete even the stranger feels known to him---he is still someone he would have gladly given his life for to make his homeworld whole and safe. And beyond that he does have a feeling he knows who it is; he and his brother were close friends, after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey!! i had a lot of fun writing this. this is my ot3 forever, which is amazing bc i haven't ever particularly shipped an ot3 before. even in works i write that are two-man pairings, eventually the other guy starts squeezing in there somewhere. like the big baroque series, i feel like my appreciation and love for this game increased throughout writing this; at one point in that, i called the baroque one a 'love letter' to the game, and strange as it probably seems for incest porn, i think of this the same way.
> 
> [omake](https://mega.nz/folder/LYlSCTxL#2PSCxVx_GHLgjMj1tnJauA/). i'd use 8tracks or youtube but tbh 8tracks sucks. maybe youtube one day but i'd have to make an account and it's a pain in the ass for a quick joke.


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